January 30, 2010

Pyrodiversity!

RIGHT: Beetle-killed pines near Granby, Colo. Photo by Jen Chase, Colorado State Forest Service

Via the Wildfire Today blog, a report from Oregon State University that the carbon emissions from forest fires have been over-estimated.

Bill at Wildfire Today comments, "The new research does not go so far to say that 'wood smoke is good smoke', but they do use my new favorite word, 'pyrodiversity'."

So when we light a fire in the wood stove, we are contributing to pyrodiversity.

And, in all seriousness, the lodgepole pine forests of northern Colorado and southern Wyoming are pyrodiversity waiting to happen--not to mention other pine forests in British Columbia and Alberta.

Other researchers continue to weigh the carbon-release issue.

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