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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Fueled by Warming Climate, Bark Beetles Chew Up Western Forests

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Monday, September 25, 2017   

HELENA, Mont. – Fire won't be the only natural disaster to rip through Montana forests this year.

Another disaster will be using its teeth.

Bark beetles have long been a nuisance for wooded areas of the West, and scientists say climate change is making the land more susceptible to the beetles’ wrath.

Last year, outbreaks devastated nearly 50,000 acres of Treasure State forestland. Since 2000, the beetles have ravaged an area roughly the size of Utah, just in the western states.

Diana Six, a professor of forest entomology and pathology at the University of Montana, says the beetles' steady northward move in recent decades isn't normal.

"It's moving into places where it never was before, and that's all directly related to an increase in temperature,” she states. “Southern pine beetle is moving north. Larch beetle is moving. So, there's every indication that this is not just the normal kind of outbreak behavior. It's very much climate driven."

Six says bark beetles are very sensitive to the environment and that their migration northward is as reliable an indicator of climate change as any other signs or symptoms. She also notes that bark beetles are overrunning forests not just in the West, but around the world.

Six says people rely on forests, perhaps even more than they realize. Forests hold water supplies, clean the air, perform carbon sequestration and maintain biodiversity.

"And economics,” she adds. “I mean, wood products, recreation. Here in Montana, tourism is our number one economic engine.

“So, they're really important and, with more and more threats to the forests, we're going to have more and more problems."

Six laments that when bark beetle outbreaks get rolling, there isn't much to be done.

"In the long term, if we want to actually turn around these outbreaks and do something to really protect our forests, we're going to have to turn around climate change,” she states. “That's the only thing that's really going to make a difference. And of course, that will take some time."





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