Morton: pine bettle "emergency"
Ted Morton announced that the pine-beetle infestation in (mostly) northern Alberta is an "emergency" in order to tap into extra funds to start slashing and burning.
Ralph Carter [U of A environmental scientist] said, in the southern part of the province, the beetles should be left alone and they will eventually die out.
"I think what they're thinking about is protecting forestry jobs and what I'm thinking about is protecting forests," he said. "I think in our current overheated economy the economic value of those forests is far greater in their standing form, including standing form being attacked by bark beetles, than in their removed form for logging."