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No More Pancake Syrup? Climate Change Could Bring an End To Sugar Maples (sciencemag.org)
An anonymous reader shares a research report: Savor that sticky, slightly nutty sweetness drenching your Sunday morning pancakes now. The trees that make maple syrup will struggle to survive climate change, a new study reveals. Researchers had thought that pollution from cars, factories, and agriculture might buffer sugar maples against an increasingly warm and dry climate by supplying soils with fertilizing nitrogen. But the new analysis, which examined 20 years of tree and soil data in four Michigan locations, finds that extra boost of nitrogen won't be enough. Instead, the researchers report today in Ecology, a lack of water will stunt the trees' growth.
Stop being reasonable. You're completely missing the point of the click-bait headlines.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
As a Canadian, I completely agree with all of the sentiments you've expressed here. Every year the local farmers bring hundreds of gallons of freshly made pure maple syrup to the local markets, and trust me, if there's a production problem, they'll figure out how to fix it right quick.
Even the local Mennonites who bring the syrup in horse-drawn buggies don't use pails anymore. You only see them in use at the "historical park" sites that school trips visit, on three or four of the trees, to show the kids "how it used to be done" - and then they point at the hoses and rigging on the other trees and tell them about modern collection methods.
Also, the Canadian government's Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve(tm) (it's a real thing!) is intended to cover for exactly the type of (very temporary) shortage this would involve.
And how long will it take for those Maples to grow in Northern Ontario? Is the soil suitable? Here, maples prefer rich bottom land soil. Are there other tree species that can move north faster and/or adapt faster? Here, Alders are the primary pioneer species, not surprisingly as they can fix their own nitrogen.
There's also the question of whether warming will cause more or less rainfall. The Maples around here love rain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
wtf?
Ontario and Quebec are literally covered in maple trees. Maple syrup productions is practically a cultural tradition in Quebec. The whole Canada/Maple Syrup thing is one of the stereotypes which is actually true.
How are you seriously wondering if CANADA, the country with a maple leaf on it's flag, will be able to grow maple trees??