TreeDazzled

Krug’s ‘Tasting on the Lawn’

Charles Krug Winery, the Peter Mondavi family and guests will toast the season’s grape harvest at their annual “Tasting on the Lawn” from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday. Visitors will taste all 15 of Charles Krug’s current wine releases, including the winery’s limited release and family reserve wines. Tastings will be paired with foods by Calistoga’s All Seasons Catering. Live music and entertainment will be provided by classic rock guitarist Paul Hlebcar and his band. Lawn chairs, picnic blankets, and straw hats are encouraged. Tickets are available in advance for $30, online (www.charleskrug .com) or by calling (888) 747-5784. Tickets will be $35 at the door.

Link: Krug's "Tasting on the Lawn"

Sonoma and Mendocino Wine Regions Prepare For Dry Spell

I've talked to people in the industry, and everyone is concerned about some kind of impact. Growers are concerned that they won't have any grapes to sell. Winemakers are concerned that they won't have any grapes to buy--or that the available grapes will be incredibly expensive. And drinkers are concerned that wine prices will go up. Or, worse, that they may be forced to buy French wine.

Due to a lengthy dry spell in Northern California this season, Sonoma and Mendocino counties face a potentially devastating drought. This water shortage poses an immediate threat to Russian River grape growers and the region's hospitality industry.

Local officials have warned residents that water usage cutbacks may be as high as 50 percent. The dry spell won't just be about brown lawns and dry pools. The first to weather the impact? The region's grape growers, who will be forced to reconsider whether or not to turn on the spigots for frost protection in March.

Link: Sonoma and Mendocino Wine Regions Prepare For Dry Spell | news, wines, eco | YumSugar - Recipes, Menus, Food & Wine.

New giant palm species flowers itself to death

This article is so amazing that I find myself asking if it is real, or a hoax:

Botanists on Thursday announced they had identified a new species of palm that is so enormous it can be spotted from space and whose bizarre life cycle requires the plant to kill itself after it has flowered.

The gigantic, pyramid-shaped plant was discovered accidentally by a French family walking in remote north-western Madagascar, according to the publishers of their study.

The palm's trunk is more than 18m high and its leaves are an extraordinary 5m in diameter, which could make them the largest known to date among flowering plants.

A French couple, Xavier and Nathalie Metz, who run a cashew farm in Madagascar, stumbled upon the palm as they were walking with their family at a limestone outcrop in the hills of Analalava district, Blackwell said. Stunned by the sight, they took pictures of it and posted them on the web.

Very disappointing that there isn't a picture.  A Google search for the couple turns up nothing but a bunch of genealogy web sites.  Does anybody have access to the famous picture?

Link: New giant palm species flowers itself to death.

Guilt-Free Pollution. Or Is It?

This article is sceptical about carbon offsets:

The operations reflect a new consciousness about climate change, but scientists and environmental watchdogs say that the carbon trading actually may be producing little of real value to the environment. “These companies may be operating with the best will in the world, but they are doing so in settings where it’s not really clear you can monitor and enforce their projects over time,” said Steve Rayner, a senior professor at Oxford and a member of a group working on reducing greenhouse gases for the International Panel on Climate Change. “What these companies are allowing people to do is carry on with their current behavior with a clear conscience.”

I, too, am sceptical. But these articles need to offer some real alternatives to buying offsets, not just scepticism. What can a concerned commuter do to offset his use of fossil fuels that is truly effective? Buy a new Prius, perhaps? Of course, there are sceptical articles about those, too.

Link: Guilt-Free Pollution. Or Is It? - New York Times.

A Tree-Hugger Shows Her Affection With a Saw

I have to admit that I prefer my trees au natural.  I'm not sure if I can't stomach using a saw on a living thing, or whether I'm just too lazy to learn to prune correctly, but pruning isn't easy for me.  Nevertheless, Anne Raver's most recent article is a nice summary and how-to.  The article also has some nice book recommendations:

I HAD actually been waiting for a hard freeze so I could go out and prune my old pear tree. Those 60- and 70-degree days in my garden last month made me wonder if the shrubs and trees, with their bulging buds, would ever go dormant.  So when the arctic weather rolled in two weeks ago, I put on my long underwear and went looking for my trusty tools: bypass pruning shears, a folding hand saw and loppers.

Link: A Tree-Hugger Shows Her Affection With a Saw - New York Times.

Climate Panel Issues Urgent Warning to Curb Gases

It is truly sad to read the heartrending urgency of the message in this report, and to know that the world is incapable of responding to it effectively.  I've come to believe that mild climate change and dramatic environmental change will happen in my lifetime.  I think that these issues will dominate the globe's attention for the next century:

The report released here represented the fourth assessment since 1990 by the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations, of the causes and consequences of climate change. But for the first time the group asserted with near certainty — more than 90 percent confidence — that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases from human activities were the main drivers of warming since 1950.

If carbon dioxide concentrations reach twice their pre-industrial levels, the report said, the climate will likely warm some 3.5 to 8 degrees. But there would be more than a one in 10 chance of much greater warming, a situation many earth scientists say poses an unacceptable risk.

Even an increased level of warming that falls in the middle of the group’s range of projections would likely cause significant stress to ecosystems and alter longstanding climate patterns that shape water supplies and agricultural production, according to many climate experts and biologists.

There was a report on NPR this morning that inadvertantly highlighted the incredible cluelessness of most of the US population about these issues.  The report was about a "biodiesel road trip" taken by a reporter and a biodiesel enthusiastic.  During the trip, the travelers stopped at a truck stop to get some thoughts about biodiesel from the truckers.  As expected, opinions differed, which is entirely justified in the case of biodiesel (I'm not a fan, myself).  But one of the truckers, after giving his opinion, went on to say (in paraphrase): "Anything to do with the environmentalists, I'm against it.  It's all a scam."  How can we expect people with these views--and there are a lot of them--to get behind the incredible sacrifices that would be required to have a perceptible impact on global warming?  Maybe we should tackle the US education system as well as the global environment.

Within the next week, I am planning to go carbon neutral.  I embarrassed not to have done so already.  Those of you who have already done this: please share your experiences.  Those of you who haven't: please educate yourselves.  Personally, after reading the linked report, I'm considering the Climate Trust.  I will write up a post about my experience getting this done on my blog.

Link: Climate Panel Issues Urgent Warning to Curb Gases - New York Times.

In the Rockies, Pines Die and Bears Feel It

This article about the relationship between mountain pine beetles and grizzly bears struck a chord with me. I've been worried for some time that global warming might lead to the extinction of certain tree species within my lifetime, as niche environments change and weakened trees succumb to various threats. This article makes the case that extinction of the whitebark pine, Pinus albicaulis, is a real possibility in the not-so-distant future:

Dr. Logan enters the fray on the question of what grizzly bears eat, how much of it will be available in the future, and where. All that, he says, hinges on the mountain pine beetle and the whitebark pine.

The tree (Pinus albicaulis) has no value as commercial timber. But gnarled and bushy whitebark pines anchor the timberline in much of the West. They hold the soil for other vegetation to get a foothold, and they trap snow, prolonging the spring runoff.

They are slow-growing trees and may not even bear cones until they are a half-century old. In the late 19th century, the naturalist John Muir counted rings in a weatherbeaten example high in California’s Sierra Nevada. Its trunk was just six inches across. To his astonishment it was 426 years old.

The beetle’s usual targets were once midaltitude lodgepole and ponderosa pines. But it has begun extending its range as it adapts to warming temperatures in the Rockies — two degrees since the mid-1970s. As a result, it has been killing whitebark pines at altitudes in the Rockies and the Cascades of Oregon and Washington that would have once been too cold.

Beetle attacks have added to the toll taken by a disease called white pine blister rust. In the northern Rockies, the beetle infests 143,000 acres. Entire forest vistas, like that at Avalanche Ridge near Yellowstone National Park’s east gate, are expanses of dead, gray whitebarks.

“We are very worried the whitebarks may be locally extirpated, if not driven extinct,” said Diana Tomback, professor of biology at the University of Colorado, Denver, and president of the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation, a nonprofit organization. One recent Forest Service study suggested that in the next century a global warming would reduce by 90 percent the acreage that has the kind of cold and high altitude climate where the trees now grow.

If you love trees, then this article is worth a very close read. Some of the quotes from folks who have spent their careers studying the biology of this ecosystem--and who are now watching it disappear, year by year--are heartbreaking, both for the destruction described and for the obvious distress of those quoted.

Link: In the Rockies, Pines Die and Bears Feel It - New York Times.

Fund will bring 20,000 trees to Houston

I was jealous when one of the folks over at GardenWeb was getting ready to plant 600 seedlings. But that effort pales in comparison to the planting of 20,000 trees in Houston. I wish I could be there!

You can help plant 20,000 trees along Will Clayton Parkway on Saturday in what organizers say is the largest volunteer tree-planting in Houston's history. "It's going to be a big deal. Really, it's going to be a party," said Gary Woods with Trees for Houston, a nonprofit organization that promotes protection and planting of trees. Saturday's event is part of the Houston Area Freeway and Forestation Project sponsored by U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, R-Humble. In 2006, Poe obtained $28.5 million in funding for beautification, erosion prevention and flood-control programs in the Houston area. That funding will bear fruit, or at least put down roots, this weekend as Poe, community leaders, Trees for Houston, the Houston Parks and Recreation Department and the Texas Department of Transportation join forces for the Arbor Day 2007 tree-planting.

Of course, I can't imagine that this push will bring Houston even close to what California has accomplished on its highways. I don't know why California highways are so beautifully landscaped, but it must cost a lot of money and I'm very grateful for it.

Link: Fund will bring 20,000 trees to Houston | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle.

Study hopeful for world's forests

I found this report to be absolutely remarkable, and very hopeful:

When the technique was applied to data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) Global Forest Assessment report, the researchers found that forest stocks had actually expanded over the past 15 years in 22 of the world's 50 most forested nations. They also showed increases in biomass and carbon storage capacity in about half of the 50 countries. But the data also revealed that forest area and biomass was still in decline in Brazil and Indonesia, home to some of the world's most important rainforests.

It is hard to imagine that this could be true. The next step is to start expanding forests worldwide. I never imagined that forests could be expanded again, until humans have been removed from the planet. But if we can stabilize forest losses, then perhaps we can start to move forward someday.

It is very interesting to me that this study measured timber volumes, biomass and captured carbon - not just land areas covered by trees. Is it possible that relatively local interventions, such as tree-planting within cities, are having a significant global impact?

Link: BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Study hopeful for world's forests.

Collector's Nursery quitting business 50% off sale

Sadly, this nursery in Battle Ground, WA is going out of business. They have a lot of conifers that will be going cheaply. Stop by if you are in the area:

16804 NE 102nd Ave.
Battle Ground, WA 98604

Link: Collector's Nursery.