The pine needle outbreak currently going on in the Rocky Mountains is more than ten times larger than any other outbreak before. There was one million acres of dead trees in 2006 with over 500,000 acres added every year. Climate change (global warming) has largely contributed to the size and severity of the outbreak. It may also affect the ability to remove greenhouse gases by trees. This creates a snowball effect, creating better conditions for more pine beetles. BC and Alberta trees are ill-equipped to deal with pine beetles because they are not used to them. Because of this, they are being hit very hard by the outbreak.

More trees are dying than being renewed. This is because some of the trees only release their seeds when they hit a certain temperature. Since pine beetles don’t heat the trees up, the trees keep dying but don’t get renewed. Also, fires cannot be used to contain the outbreak since the trees are close to towns and cities.

One possible solution people have looked at is using very harsh chemicals.