Nevergreen

21 million acres of Canadian evergreen forest has turned rust-red in patches as a runaway infestation of mountain pine beetles lays waste to stands of lodgepole pine. A string of warm winters has triggered the epidemic; the beetles are not new, but were normally kept in check by winter cold snaps.

The Washington Post reports that the beetles have so far "killed 411 million cubic feet of trees -- double the annual take by all the loggers in Canada. In seven years or sooner, the Forest Service predicts, that kill will nearly triple and 80 percent of the pines in the central British Columbia forest will be dead." Warmer temperatures have also fueled beetle infestations in Alaska's spruce forests and New Mexico's pinyon pines.