How Ironic Is This

From CBC News.

The mountain pine beetle’s infestation in western Canada is
turning forests into a new source of greenhouse gases, according to new
research to be published Thursday in the journal Nature.

Scientists from Natural Resources Canada said the beetle’s
ravenous spread through pine forests in British Columbia and Alberta is
killing trees. The decaying trees are in turn releasing carbon into the
atmosphere.

The cumulative impact of the beetle outbreak in the region will
release 990 megatonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gases
from 2000 to 2020, said the NRCan’s senior research scientist, Werner
Kurz.

“That’s equivalent to five times the annual emissions from the
transportation sector in Canada,” Kurz told CBC News. “So these are
very big numbers.”