It is no joke!
‘‘Strike teams’’ of US Forest Service.... have been pushing the idea."
The mouthpiece media giving it a big shove:
"After limb-snapping storms, tree choices scrutinized" by John Flesher | Associated Press April 01, 2014
EAST LANSING, Mich. — A vicious ice storm that made Christmas week a nightmare from the Midwest to Maine shattered hundreds of trees at Michigan State University, where inch-thick layers of ice snapped thick limbs and trunks of stately towers that had stood for generations.
Yeah, it's been a miserable winter but we have been told in the last two days catastrophic and cataclysmic global warming taking place.
It was a distressing sight for a campus billed as an urban forest where scientists since the 1800s have kept records of every tree, where native oaks and maples coexist with exotic Siberian elms and Japanese pagodas. But amid the destruction, Frank Telewski saw opportunity and jumped into action with his tools of choice — not chain saw or ax, but tape measure and computer.
The biology professor and curator of Michigan State’s arboretum is teaming up with experts in several states to study which kinds of trees best withstand ice and other severe weather, and ways of making them less vulnerable.
Why? I've been told there is a catastrophic and cataclysmic global warming taking place.
The project could present municipalities with difficult questions....
Like where is this alleged global warming (shiver)?
Heavy snow brings challenges every winter, but ice storms are especially ruinous. They snap power lines, leaving multitudes in the dark.
Ice layers can boost weight on limbs by up to 100 times, shredding them or uprooting entire trees, a risk to life and property as they topple onto buildings and vehicles. Researchers say losses regularly exceed $225 million annually.
The just-concluded winter, in which ice storms wreaked havoc across much of the eastern United States, may spur more city park departments, developers, and homeowners to reduce future losses by planting different trees.
‘‘Strike teams’’ of US Forest Service and state experts have been pushing the idea.
That's why I don't like it whatever it is.
‘‘It really doesn’t sink in until a community has a storm and tries to recover,’’ said John Parry, a Forest Service urban forester.
A 2007 ice storm so devastated Norman, Okla., that enough debris was collected — at a cost of $6 million — to halfway fill the stadium where the University of Oklahoma Sooners play football, Mayor Cindy Rosenthal said. Trees are not taken for granted in that state, where much of the landscape is prairie. Its loss of prized hackberries, pin oaks, and other varieties was a blow.
‘‘The storm was traumatic,’’ Rosenthal said. ‘‘Through the night, you would hear the trees cracking and breaking. You knew what was happening but had no idea how bad the damage would be until the next morning.’’
The state has given away nearly 7,000 trees for replanting, but it’s uncertain how long it will take to fill in the gaps.
The city is now making tough choices on whether to keep ornamental varieties such as the Bradford pear, notoriously fragile but often planted for its attractive springtime blooms. Another tree with a bad reputation is the silver maple, brittle but popular with housing developers because it grows rapidly.
How can a tree have a bad "reputation?" It's only after they are turned into newspapers....
Favored are lacebark elms because they are a native species considered resistant to drought as well as ice. Others recommended include the bald cypress and various oaks.
Looks like Mother Nature's reputation is intact to me.
Some municipal officials question whether ice resistance should be a priority.
In Springfield, Mass., city forester Ed Casey said factors like resistance to disease and pests are uppermost.
With ice storms, ‘‘You can have perfectly healthy trees that are structurally sound, have good strength capacity, and they can still be damaged,’’ Casey said.
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Yeah, not only is the record cold winters a problem, but they planted the wrong trees!
NEXT DAY UPDATE: Syrup-makers go high-tech
Related: Sappy Global Warming Story
Going to be a $our year in more ways than one because of the persistent cold.
