The presenters:
The May 4 League Day program will examine the interaction between climate change and California’s wild and urban forests, both now and in a warmer future. There will be two speakers.
Nicole Molinari, USFS Provincial Ecologist from Santa Barbara, will speak about “Climate Change and the Future of the Wild California Forests.” California is experiencing an unprecedented “die-off” of more than 100 million Sierra Trees and this environmental disaster will have decades-long effects. How did the die-off occur, and what is its likely outcome? How do climate change and the forest affect each other? How is the forest likely to change in the future? What are the most important long-term USFS forest management challenges and opportunities? The speaker will address these issues.
Linda Eremita, Forestry Education Manager and Lead ISA Certified Arborist at TreePeople, will present “Preparing for a Warmer Future: Urban Tree Species Selection and Care.” She will discuss how trees react to warmer, dryer conditions and how to select climate-appropriate trees and care for them.
Tree canopy can lower temperatures in shaded areas by 3̊ to 4̊ F. and absorb CO2, benefiting both an individual homeowner and the community. We have all experienced the sense of relief that comes from moving from sunlight into dense shade on a hot sunny day.
Just as many homeowners today benefit from previous owners’ decisions to plant shade trees more than fifty years ago, our current tree planting can benefit future generations. To paraphrase an ancient Greek proverb, “Society grows great when the old plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
—George Null, Natural Resources Director
