I can see the headline: “Scientists urge clearcutting to reduce carbon emissions.”

This shocker idea comes from the latest analysis of the effects of a huge mountain pine beetle infestation on the forests of British Columbia. The pine beetle, the bug that has killed so many trees in the Sawtooths, has killed thousands of acres of the northern forests as well.

The decomposing dead trees are creating carbon dioxide faster than the live trees are absorbing carbon dioxide a story in the Christian Science Monitor says. Canada’s forests are viewed as a key tool for capturing carbon dioxide, which scientists say is likely causing the current global warming trend.

Beetle kills in the forests are a natural event despite long time efforts by the timber industry and foresters to reduce them through management. But once again, climate change has moved the chain determining what is natural.

The historic cycle saw beetles kill the oldest trees, drop their needles and when they had killed most of the trees vulnerable to infestation it stopped. The forests, now naturally opened up to light grew back and the cycle continued.

But with temperatures warming, the beetles are moving into new areas and up to higher elevations. The number of dead trees is overwhelming the historic number of live trees.

Add the growing acres of forests that are burning and across the American West and Canada the threat that forests will turn into carbon producers instead of carbon sinks is a very real potential.

Why should you care?

Well, for one, carbon producing forests will accelerate the rate of global warming. Those who don’t believe man is causing climate change, like former Greenpeace leader turned logging and nuclear power advocate, may see the proof very soon.

Second, the most obvious way to address the problem is to cut down a lot of trees to slow the infestations and to replace older trees with younger ones that are not vulnerable to beetles. I’m not saying that’s the right path because analyzing how forests and other natural landscapes recycle carbon is not, to paraphrase Jack Ward Thomas, only more complex than we think. It is more complex than we can think.

The traditional environmentalist answer to this problem, the nail to their hammer so to speak, would be to do nothing. The problem with that approach is that doing nothing also means the likely replacement of millions of acres of habitat for species that benefit from some of the trees such as whitebark pine, that grizzly bear depend on for food.

Clearcutting, the Forest Service's old way to deal with beetles hurt fish and wildlife habitat and was as popular with the public as watching the whole area burn. But a return to federally subsidized logging well may be one of the tools needed to address the issue.

So once again, climate change is forcing a new forest debate that doesn’t fit into the old model. People on both sides of the issue are going to have to think again and to use their imagination to find a solution.

Learning and thinking together would help.

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