WEBVTT - The Woods Are Bad 0:00:05.120 --> 0:00:10.479 Oh boy, it could happen here. That's the name of 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:17.160 the podcast, and I'm Robert Evans, the guy hosting the podcast. 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:19.840 Who else is with me? Is it? Is it? Garrison? Hello, 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:25.000 Good morning, afternoon evening. Garrison Davis. Not yet a doctor 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:29.160 Garrison Davis, not yet, soon soon to be Dr Garrison Davis. 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:32.040 I don't know if you're going to pass the exam 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:33.800 that I know you're gonna have to pass in order 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:37.400 to get through this class. But yeah, a little teaser 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:40.360 for the future. Speaking of the future, this is a 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:43.120 podcast about the ways in which the future is going 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:45.000 to be real fucked up and ways in which maybe 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:47.080 we could try to make it less sucked up. Um. 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.280 And today we have on a guest, Mr Calvin Norman, 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:53.479 who posted a thread on our sub breddit with the 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:58.480 very simple, very unsettling title the woods are bad um 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.560 and Calvin, you want to enter you yourself, your credentials 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:03.120 and what you were trying to get across on that 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.319 threat because I found it very affecting. Yeah, thanks for ever. 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.600 So my name is, like you said, Calvin Norman, I 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:12.440 work in forestry. I've worked in forestry for a while now. 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:15.399 I used to be an industrial forester in the Great 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:18.520 Lakes region, so like Wisconsin, Michigan. Then I worked in 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:21.840 the Southeast. I did my masters down there, and now 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:23.480 I'm in the mid Atlantic. So I've I've kind of 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:25.800 been around the eastern United States. I haven't gotten that 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.199 west yet, but and I'm a certified forest or candidate 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:31.040 certified forest I got a year left on that, so 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:33.800 I been around. I also do wildlife stuff. It's pretty fun. 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:36.720 And yeah, your your thread. What I found interesting that 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:38.840 I have a good friend who is in forestry or 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:41.679 was in't forestry at least and got their degree and that, 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.840 and we were we were at hunting in the Cascades 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.400 a little earlier or a little later last year. Um, 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:50.440 and there's this wonderful moment. We've been following a game 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:52.800 trail up like this Steve hill side and it was 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:54.680 kind of a clearing where we were a clear cut, 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:56.240 but there's deep brush all around. And we get to 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:57.560 the top of this thing, we look out and we 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:00.800 just see, you know, these these rolling mountain of the Cascades, 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:04.200 all covered in this the most this lush, beautiful greenery, 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:07.240 all these these pine trees and everything. And my friend 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:10.040 says to me, it's going to be totally different in 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.880 twenty years. Um, it's already a different forest than the 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:14.840 one I grew up with. And and that that is, 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:16.880 that is kind of the cliffs notes of what what 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:18.600 you're You're getting into a lot of detail here, and 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:20.720 I'm wondering if you could just kind of like, yeah, 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.440 start on that, explain kind of what's actually happening in 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:26.119 our woods, or at least the woods that that you're 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.799 comfortable talking about here. It's a big yeah, yeah, this 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:31.600 is a big condent. And you have a pretty good 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:34.840 international base. And I can't speak for the Europeans or 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:37.120 the Canadians. There's a whole different ball game over there. 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:41.120 And tropical stuff is just white, yeah, really cool about 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:44.960 wild stuff. So mainly talked about the US, mainly Eastern 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.560 United States. So if you look at the eastern United States, 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:52.320 this is a forest that has never existed before in 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:55.520 the history of the United States. UM previews, you know, 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:59.120 prior to like nineteen twenty are forest was like depending 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:03.160 on the source of read, between twenty and chestnut with 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:05.720 other species mixed in there. And now we have a 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.600 mainly oak dominated forest and we lost all of our 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.800 chest into the chestnut blight. Um out Western You've got 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.000 a couple of other things going on, but fire suppression 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:16.440 is just changed the forest there. Uh, same here in 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:19.040 the East coast and into the Midwest. You know you 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.239 used to see a lot more fires going through. I mean, 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:23.240 so that was lightning strikes, but no doubt a lot 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:25.440 of it was you know, intentionally set by the first 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:27.960 nations and people before the people that we think of 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:30.919 as the first nations. And um, you know that has 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.480 mainly disappeared except for the southeast where fire has never 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:36.520 really stopped being at the ground, which is really cool. 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:41.520 But even their species, which is composition, has changed dramatically. Um. 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:43.600 A lot of what we're seeing as you know, changes 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.160 in human management. But there's also a number of invasive 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:49.400 species that have changed things. You know, like chestnut blight, 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:52.920 emerald ashbour asia, longhorn beetle is coming in. You know, 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:55.320 those are just the past the understory. And you know, 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:59.360 plants is a whole different ballgame. Um, it's it's it's 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:01.960 all not great. It's all not great. I was talking 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:05.040 with some colleagues at an agricultural show before I posted that, 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:06.640 and we were talking about how the woods were bad 0:04:07.240 --> 0:04:10.680 and we very easily laid out a scenario where we 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.680 lost the most of our remaining dominantory species. It was 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.040 not at all hard to do. It took about two minutes. 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.680 So not great. Uh. And then the West coast things 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:24.720 aren't great either. And when you're talking about when you're 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.760 talking about losing these species and stuff like the chestnut light, 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:30.120 where is that coming from? How much of that is 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.560 sort of as a result of climate change? Like we're 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:34.520 having a lot of tree species have trouble here in 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.160 the West because of how much hotter the summers are 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.760 and how much drier things have gotten. So how much 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:41.520 how much of what you're saying where you are is 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:44.640 because there's been changes to the climate, And how much 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:46.479 of it is you know, I guess kind of like globalism, 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.200 like people bringing in pests and bringing in blights and 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:53.159 stuff from other areas and it spreads like wildfire. Well, 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.039 I think that we're just starting to see the beginning 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.400 of climate change, like driving species you know, up the mountain, 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.680 off the mountain out west and here you know, out 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:03.960 of certain regions, you know, as things are getting hotter 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.880 and drier or is you know, climbates are becoming more extreme. 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:09.920 You know, here in the Atlantic we had one of 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:11.560 the wettest years on record, I think it was like 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:14.280 five or seven, whereas in the Midwest they had droughts. 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:16.720 But before that we had two years of drought. So 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:19.640 you know, it's it's more extreme, and that's that's just 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:22.800 starting to take part. But the extinctions and near extinctions 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.960 have been mainly due to non native pest um. And 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.640 that's just most of it right there. Um, just because 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:32.039 we haven't really seen the start of climate change, yeah, 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.480 impacting diseases. So like out west with the mountain pinebealle 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.760 you're seeing more generations of mountain pinebele comes through. I 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:41.880 was just doing a presentation for some folks in South 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.360 Dakota and something like a third of their total force 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:50.599 was impacted by mountain pine beetle. Jeez, And and what 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:52.760 is that like when you actually talk about this, these 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:56.080 beetles coming in. That's the kind of thing that even 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:58.159 as we've gotten more comfortable talking about sort of of 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.400 of the different kind of collapses spawned climate change, I 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.719 think that they we tend to imagine more spectacular things. 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:08.159 These giants, sweeping fires that burned through huge chunks of 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:13.320 states and these huge like environmental calamities. What is this, Like, 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:15.559 what happens when one of these beetles hits a forest? 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.400 One of these beetles species obviously not like a singular beetle, Like, 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.840 what is actually like how quick is the effect and 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:24.359 what kind of comes after that? Like, I I know, 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:26.000 there's sort of a shock wave. It's kind of like 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.120 a bomb going off. I'm interested in kind of tracing 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.440 the root of that explosion, if that makes sense. Yeah, 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:34.239 So it depends species. It species. Chestnut plate was really 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:36.800 fast and it just seems to have torn through the 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:39.360 chest instative range. So chest that went from Florida to 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:44.080 Maine and out west like Tennessee kind of area there um, 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:46.799 and it just you know, in like something like fifteen years, 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:49.920 the entire species gone. Emerald ash board has taken a 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:52.240 little bit longer. Got here in the eighties, started kind 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:54.280 of going off in the mid two thousands, and it's 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:56.120 killed a couple of billion trees. So when that hits 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:58.520 a small forest, you know, if it's a if it's 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.960 a pretty you know, beetle kills pretty fast. Like eyl dashboard, 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:04.600 it gets into your trees. It starts with one or 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.400 two and then within four or five years, it's it's 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:09.800 in most of them in the forest. And then with 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:13.200 emoral ashboard they're dead and five hemlock William delG it 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:15.120 is pretty similar. It'll just show up one day in 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.800 a stand and then the hemlocks are dead within five 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:21.760 seven years. Uh. And you know, sometimes you know what's 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.760 going on, you know, because emil lashboard is very clear signs, 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:26.920 and other times you don't know what's going on because 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.040 the tree can't be so tall as all of a sudden, 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:31.200 trees are getting thinner and thinner and then they're dead, 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.440 or you have pests like um oak well and that 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.160 in that trees are dead, you know, in two months, 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:40.320 and then it spreads out like a circle. You know 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.840 it kind of exactly when you see like a bacteria 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:46.440 like growth medium with the bacteria spreading out, that's oak 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.160 spreads and it's just like trees are dead, you know, 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:51.120 two months and they spread out and out and out 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.760 and scary. Sometimes is there anything that can be I 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:57.880 mean it sounds like with with most of these cases, 0:07:57.880 --> 0:07:59.840 like with what's happened with kind of like the chestnuts, 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.040 and it's it's too late for a lot of that 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:05.400 is there anything that can actually be done to stop this, 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.400 Like I know we have all these structures in place 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:10.560 to try to stop the spread of invasive species, but 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:12.720 like once they're in there, it kind of seems like 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:17.040 usually we're fucked. Yeah, ye that okay, Yeah. Once you 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.800 get past there's what's called the invasive species establishment curve, 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:23.160 so it's an escar, and once you get like right, 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:24.840 like once it starts taking up, it's like, oh, well, 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.960 we're done here, so let's let's start thinking about the future. 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:31.280 And as you lose more species, like what are we 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:32.719 doing here? Or if you're like you know, in the 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:34.559 case of the case of action, it's like this ash 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:36.480 is going into a swamp. I have nothing else that's 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.400 going to grow here, so now I just have an 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:42.600 open wetland, like I can grow any naive trees here. 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.760 Were done. So the biggest thing is preventioned like don't 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:48.200 don't bring invasive species in or non native species in. 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:51.120 I was talking to a lady a couple of weeks ago, 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.280 and she hasn't rolled or not. She has hemlock William 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:57.480 delj in a property, and she brought in a bio 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:00.360 control or she assumed was a bio control from Japan. 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.920 It's a beatle and yeah, in this case, it was 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:06.960 one that had been tested and failed because it doesn't 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:08.719 make it through the winter. But you know, stuff like 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:10.560 that's like just just don't do that, you know, I 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:13.679 cheat the thought there, but don't with some of these 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:16.679 species we have, you know, you know, like hem luckily adult, 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:18.640 we have pesticides that worked really well and that you 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:20.559 apply the order the tree and so it's like, all right, 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.520 I treated this tree. This tree is good for seven years. 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:25.840 Some of them, like Emerald, last boar, You're done. There's 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:30.840 just nothing you can do. So yeah, it's a prevention, prevention, 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:34.080 and then then you can quarantine. But then you know, 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:36.200 it's like where this county is done, so we're gonna 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.080 just try to make sure that only this county dies. Jeez, 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:51.840 you mentioned a bit earlier like thinking about the future, 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:54.000 what does that actually look like when when we hit 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:55.960 a situation as we have with a lot of these species, 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.360 were like, all right, well this ship's we ain't we 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:02.439 ain't stopping this. What is what like, what do people 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:04.840 like you do next? Like what is the next kind 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:07.360 of step for the forests or is it just sort 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.200 of a smoke them ale you got them kind of thing. Uh, 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:12.080 sometimes it's smoke them while you got them. So like 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:14.559 beach park disease is going through just roasting beach in 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.160 the East Coast, it's going it's going to the Midwest 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:19.240 and so there it's kind of like, well, you know, 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:21.120 if it's in there and your beach or diet, take 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:23.959 them out and if they're not, don't. There's it's nine 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:26.600 percent fatal, but there's one percent that can make it. 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.640 So you know, like maybe we find that one percent 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.840 and lash nine fatal. But I've seen, you know, in 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:34.640 the past couple of years, I've seen two that made it. 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:37.520 So like if we don't cut them all, maybe someone surlive. 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.320 Theoretically we could then like clone or breed or whatever 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.760 the trees that live and and a few generations have 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:48.960 more of them. Um, if other ship doesn't happen. Yeah, 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:50.360 the chest that product has been going on for the 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:52.480 last hundred years, and it looks like I'm taking about 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.120 forty more. It's that's a controversial opinion. Some people say 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.839 it's a baschet of forty but you know years Oh 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:01.680 the chest that foundation really it's a really neat thing. 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:04.839 So there were some chestnuts that were found resistant in 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.320 some planet outside the range of chestnut blight, and so 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:10.080 the ideas where they slowly started back breeding. So they 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.640 crossed in Chinese chestnut, which is resistant to the blight, 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:16.520 which is native to China and East Asia, and so 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.640 they crossed them in with the remaining chestnut with the 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.320 hopes of you know, kind of eventually breeding out the 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:27.400 Chinese but just maintaining the American chestnut and just getting 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:29.280 that gene in there. And so they started that back 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:31.600 in like the thirties and forties when they realized what 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:36.640 was happening. Well, you know, today is two and we 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:40.280 are still without American chestnut in the forest. There are 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:44.160 some backbread versions that are more resistant, but they will 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:46.720 still get infected. I've been to a couple of chestnut 0:11:46.800 --> 0:11:49.800 nurseries where they're doing experiments and it's it's sad because 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:51.760 they'll they'll get up and then they'll die. They'll get 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:53.679 up and they'll die, and it's like, oh, there's two. 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:55.400 There are two over there in the corner that made it, 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.000 and those get you onto the next one. But there 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:01.520 is some work out of New York, Suny in New 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:06.440 York where they altered a chestnut and they put in um. 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:09.160 They just they just changed the genes. So the version 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:13.319 of the genus makes chestnut blight resistant is in that 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:16.040 and that's getting approved by the E p A, F 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:19.400 d A and U S d A. Hopefully that gets approved. 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.040 If that gets approved, we get real, We get real 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.200 further along because the resistant trees are not the same 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.240 as the American chestnut. The resistant trees are more they're 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.840 shorter and more shrubby, and they don't fulfill the overstory 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:37.480 cannot be rolled in chestnut used to playing um. That's 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.280 that's best case scenario. Worst case scenarios. You're like um butternut, 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.520 which was driven to functional ex things at the same time, 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.000 and we're just nowhere on that produce, working on some stuff, 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:52.560 but it's nowhere. They're not in the woods now. How 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.360 how much of like because I tend to roll my 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:59.000 eyes pretty hard when we're talking in particular climate change 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:01.439 and people are like, well, I think that science is 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:03.200 going to save our asses from this one. We're gonna 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:06.160 we're gonna develop some like miraculous carbon capture method like 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:08.240 at the last minute, we'll we'll we'll be able to 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:10.800 reverse everything and it'll be fine. I tend to roll 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.120 my eyes at that. But this and maybe I'm not 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:15.240 obviously I don't understand this that nearly the level you 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:17.360 do is this kind of a thing where if there's 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:19.200 hope for a lot of these species and a lot 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:21.320 of these biomas, it's going to be and stuff like 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:23.520 we figure out how to hack these trees to keep 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:26.240 them alive, and and like is that really kind of 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:29.920 where we are? I know some very good tree genesis 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.800 and tree breaders, but I don't think that they have 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.000 the capabilities of, you know, coming up with trees that 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:38.920 are resistant to all of the various fungi and bugs 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:40.880 that are out there. And even if they do, it's 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:42.839 you know, you have to get them out into the woods. 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.400 You have to plant million acres of forest. You've got 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:47.960 to get them out into the woods. You have to 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:49.920 have the nurseries to get them out. There's you know, 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:52.679 even if you were able to create trees that resistance 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.199 to all these pests, it would be impossible. So no, 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.320 the only the only answer is, uh, don't don't do 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.960 climate change. And to the carbon captured perspective, um, the 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:05.080 only machine that's going to capture of the amount of 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.440 carbon we need our trees. I do, I do forest 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:12.000 carbon stuff, which is a whole different episode. I want to. 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:14.480 I mean, I'm there. I'm extremely interested in that because obviously, 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.720 like we've we've been supported by a couple of companies who, like, 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:19.000 one of the things they do to try to be 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:21.560 nice is they'll they'll plant trees and stuff, which is 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.200 not useless. But also a lot of people think that 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.360 that's what rebuilding a forest is, and like, no, forests 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:30.240 are a huge part of the problem with why the 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:32.360 West is so flammable. As we chopped down all these 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:35.720 trees and we grew back just the trees um to 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:37.840 chop them down again, and that turns out to not 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:40.560 be resilient at all to anything, because trees do not 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.840 live on their own ever. Yeah, that's why it's a forest. 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:49.080 It's not just exactly right, Yeah, no, it's yeah, that's 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:53.680 that's a planting. There's not the infrastructure to plant. Our 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.200 way of climate change is not the land. It's just impossible. 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:00.080 And so even even if even if there were the 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.360 infrastructure in the lane, that we don't have the time, 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:05.280 because you know, trees take time to grow, they work 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:09.280 at a different time scale than humans do, even your 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:13.000 your shortest lived trees sixty eight years. Yeah, and it 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.080 is one of those things where I mean, we we 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:16.760 have this is what we taught. We kind of started 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:19.640 this new season which is forever with which is that 0:15:19.720 --> 0:15:22.440 like there's no there's nothing we can do that will 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.440 stop us from continuing to face worse and worse because 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:27.920 because like consequences of climate change, because the carbon is 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.080 already been admitted, right, you can't just pull it out 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.800 warming as even if we were to like make very 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:36.360 revolutionary changes tomorrow, there's still some degree to which it's 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:39.240 going to get worse. Um. But when it comes to 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.760 like within your field, what like carbon capture using trees 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:44.200 and stuff, can you talk to us about like what 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.640 that actually looks like as opposed to sort of the 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.080 will plant a tree for every dollar you spend kind 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.920 of thing. Um? So yeah, I actually I actually can. 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:55.480 It's I do a lot of my work about forest 0:15:55.520 --> 0:16:02.680 carbon stuff. So yeah, Basically the idea is to make 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:04.960 sure you have the best way to get carbon c 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.600 equestration of the force is to have a healthy, functioning forest. 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:11.000 And that's you know, kind of where these pests and 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:13.320 climate change are interfering with that. And so you know, 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:15.880 to maintain a healthy functioning force on the East Coast. 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:17.400 You know, some of these you need to have fire, 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:19.040 some of them not. Some of them are too wet 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:21.760 to burn. Uh. And then you know, harvesting needs to 0:16:21.840 --> 0:16:23.680 take place in some of these. Some of these don't 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:26.200 need to be harvested. Again, we're talking, you know, millions 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:28.960 of acres of forest here, so we're gonna be incredibly 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:33.040 broad and we've got to keep invasives out. You need 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:36.080 to keep force pest to a minimum, and then make 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:38.760 sure that you're managing the forest, you know, as best 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.400 as it can be managed. And I say managed, this 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:43.440 is not something new. Humans have been on the East 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:45.880 Coast since you know, it depends on the artifacts you 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:48.400 want to look at and what archaeologists you want to trust. 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.680 But like twenty five to twenty thousand years ago, and 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:54.560 the last glaciers left the East Coast eighteen thousand years ago, 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:58.160 so we had people here before the glaciers were gone. 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:00.880 So these forests have never not had humans hands on 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:05.560 them and never not been touched to manage by humans. Um, 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:07.560 And you know, we gotta make sure we're doing the 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:09.159 best we can you know some of that means that 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:11.479 we're managing force with what's best for the you know, 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:13.920 that means managing force for what's best with the force 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:16.080 in mind, not with best what's best for the end 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.240 of the quarter, what's best for your bank account. That's 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:22.399 hard to do because force are getting more and more 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:24.640 expensive to manage and to you know, manage to say 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:26.119 able here in the East Coast, we gotta do a 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.120 lot of fencing. We gotta keep deer out of force 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.760 because their populations are so high, it's just ridiculously high, 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:33.720 and they've never got to come back down. You know, 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:36.359 we have to spray invasive species, we have to pull 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:38.720 invasive species. You gotta go through and you've gotta make sure, 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.560 you know, you're you're preventing all those kinds of stuff. 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:43.199 And so we can take you know, you can if 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:45.520 you do a good shelter, would you can like make 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:47.520 four dollars out of it and then you could put 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:49.920 all that money back into growing your next generation of force. 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:52.800 So forces is really going from a profit making venture 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.080 on a lot of cases to like you're barely making 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:58.880 money or you're you're like breaking even or losing money. 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:01.560 It's it's no longer you know, if you really want 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:03.280 to do it, great, You're not always making money, which 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:05.359 is hard for people to get their head around. Yeah. 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:07.439 I mean it's the kind of thing that in a 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:10.679 reasonable world, huge amounts of money would be diverted to 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:14.920 from other things. Like I don't know, Um, I feel 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:16.680 like you guys could do a lot with one f 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:19.560 thirty five worth of cash. I feel like that would 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:21.679 solve almost all of our problems. Yeah, because the problems 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:23.600 that you see in force, we don't cost a lot 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:25.720 to fix, but it it costs a lot for a 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.639 forced owner, be that you know, an agency or person, 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.679 it costs a lot. Yeah. It's like all of the 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:35.119 issues around climate change kind of all circle around, like 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:39.720 growth based economics and a lot of the like nothing 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:42.760 has a shared cause, but they all have this similar 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.480 aspect to them where yeah, every every part of them 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:49.280 gets worse by the extreme focus on economic growth at 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:52.639 all costs and that suffers that that that makes everything 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.360 and everyone suffer. So, you know, it would be nice 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:57.240 if since we have a government, it would be nice 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:01.120 if they do, you know, give more funding towards uh, 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:03.720 stuff like this type of fourth management, which I know 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.199 they do some, but you know, a fraction of it 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:08.480 compared to what they give to like the Pentagon or 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:12.240 you know, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I mean even big you know, 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:15.679 forestries technically agriculture, but even like you know, like corn 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.439