Editorial

Here come the beetles

Pitch pipes used to be implements guitar players carried around to help them tune their instruments. Lately, when you hear about pitch pipes, the mountain pine beetle is the topic of conversation. “We’re trying to get the word out,” says local government forester Steven Mills.
Not that the epidemic, which has wiped out huge tracts of pine forests in central B.C., is unknown. People in northern Alberta have heard about it, but there are plenty of misconceptions still, Mills says.
One thing is for sure. The beetles have crossed the Rockies and attacked trees almost as far east as Slave Lake. Not in large numbers, yet, but the further west you go, the worse it gets. Pine forests in the Grande Prairie area have been hit much harder than anyone expected.
What to do about it? There’s not a lot any individual can do – short of learning to recognize the signs and reporting them if you see them out in the bush. Apparently the only sure cure is cold weather. Really cold weather – 40 below for three weeks.
How likely is that? Not very, if global warming predictions are true.
Let’s say global warming is real and further assume that human activity is at least partly to blame. To arrest the trend, said one scientist recently on CBC radio, industrialized countries will have to cut back on their carbon emissions by a staggering 90 per cent. He put airplane emissions at the very top of his list of culprits and said if we want to save the planet we’ll just have to get used to not traveling. Or at least travel less often and take a lot longer to arrive.
There’s something to chew on. Meanwhile, the pine beetles are chewing up vast forests of pine trees.


When to draw the line

We all make some kind of effort to maintain a clean, safe and friendly environment. But there’s a certain amount of ugliness that we have to put up with.
For example, we ignore a lot of stupid, unfriendly behaviour. We let it pass because we know it’s just part of the deal of being human, living in a community of flawed human beings.
Graffiti is one of those ugly things about urban life that for the most part one just has to shrug off. What can you do about it? Not much, so you just go on about your business and it becomes a part of the landscape.
Except sometimes it goes too far. Recently somebody spraypainted on the side of a shed in southeast Slave Lake: ‘Kill all the Jews,’ along with a Nazi swastika.
Okay, this is pretty obviously a prank pulled by some teens with too much time on their hands, but with no serious intent. Nevertheless, should we put up with it?
Should we just walk by and let it blend in with the landscape? Should we say – as others have in other places and times – ‘oh it’s just those radical yahoos. Don’t take it seriously’?
Or should we maybe decide that this isn’t a community that shrugs its shoulders at such expressions of racial hatred. And do something about it.