Two Down, One to Go

Richard Wagener

Though elegant in design and rendering, Two Down, One to Go is a stark reminder that drastic changes to our climate are transforming our landscape. Climate change or global warming is affecting ecosystems in the Sierra Nevada region because the environment is changing faster than the trees can adapt. That change is largely due to higher temperatures and less rainfall as well as logging and wildfires. According to an NPR report, some of the tall, stately trees that have grown up in California’s Sierra Nevada are no longer compatible with the climate they live in. Hotter, drier conditions driven by climate change in the mountain range have made certain regions once hospital to conifers—such as sequoia, ponderosa pine and Douglas fir—an environmental mismatch for the cone-bearing trees. This report also states that about twenty percent of all Sierra Nevada conifer trees in California are no longer compatible with the climate around them and are in danger of disappearing.