Innovation Anthology #75: Executive Director, Advancing the Bio Economy
It’s two decades since scientists first made predictions about global climate change.
And with forecasts of warmer temperatures and drier conditions, it seemed obvious there would be more forest fires. What scientists didn’t predict at the time was an increase in forest pests like mountain pine beetle.
But according to world renowned ecologist Dr. David Schindler, this is one of the inevitable outcomes of climate warming.
And it’s a result of what he calls, a “positive feedback” on greenhouse gas emissions.
DR. DAVID SCHINDLER: If you look at how much CO2 is emitted from forest fires in Canada, the really high fire years have released almost as much CO2 to the atmosphere as industry in Canada. So if we’re going to double or triple that amount of CO2 release caused by forest fire, we could get into this cycle that scientists have hypothesized that the warming will increase the warming. Warming causes pine beetle, causes more fire weather, causes more forest fires, causes more CO2. So we get this feed back that feeds itself. And we could get into climate warming beyond anything we’ve estimated to date because our climate models don’t account for this sort of thing.
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY, I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
Guest
Steve Price,
Alberta Innovates Bio Solutions, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, steve.price@albertaInnovates.ca
Sponsor
Program Date: 2007-10-16