A conversation with Aaron Weiskittel, a Professor of Forest Biometrics and Modeling at The University of Maine.
Aaron's Maine-focused research looks at the various factors that influence regional forest structure and composition in the hope of being able to forecast future changes. His research attempts to understand the biophysical factors influencing forest growth and to integrate those factors with other economic, climate, and sociological models. Aaron was a presenter at the 2024 Maine Science Festival.
Our conversation was recorded in April 2024.
KATE DICKERSON, HOST:
Welcome to the Maine Science Podcast. I'm Kate Dickerson.
Today's episode is a conversation I had with WEISKITTEL, a Professor of Forest Biometrics and Modeling at The University of Maine. Aaron and I have known each other for over a decade, and his work and research is one of the best examples I know of to help us understand how being a forester today is far different than what most of us probably imagine when we think of forestry. I really enjoyed talking to Aaron and hearing about his work, and I hope you enjoy our conversation as well.
DICKERSON: Aaron welcome to the main science podcast you and I have known each other for longer than I'd like to admit. Sometimes I think because you came into the University of Maine while I was still there at the Smith center, working on the FBRI project. So our time overlapped a little bit when you came in. It was my chance to start learning about forestry and forest stuff in Maine, which was really cool, and I know, hugely important to the State. So now that we've let everybody know that this gonna be conversation about forests. I thought it would be good to kinda hear about. How did you get into forestry? I I know that you went to I can't believe I have to say it like this, but the Ohio State University, which, while it might be a great Forestry School, is not necessarily in the middle of forests, so did you grow up in the Midwest. Did you grow up somewhere else? I'm just if you can give us a little bit about your path. That would be great.
WEISKITTEL: Yeah, thanks, Kate, for having me, and very excited to be here. It was great that we overlapped. And yeah, we shared some time together on the forest Bioproducts Research Initiative, which was was an exciting endeavor for Maine. So yeah, my path. The forestry is not a linear one, and it was kind of a fun way to get there. I did grow up in the Midwest, which probably has more corn than forest. But fortunately, I had parents who enjoyed the outdoors and took every advantage to visit national parks and National Forest in our summer vacations. So I spent a lot of time working and hiking and being outdoors which I really enjoyed and appreciate it.
I did go to the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, a school of over 50,000 individuals. But amazingly, they don't have an ecology program. So I actually ended up in forestry just by chance. I was interested in ecology and in community ecology specifically, but I didn't really want to do zoology or any other ologies. So I went across the river and ended up in naturists department in forestry, specifically. And there I really found a passion cause. It's it's kind of this, a nice combination of both art and science. It's really, that's how forestry is often described as the art of managing trees, art and science and managing trees. So really, I was able to put together two things of both kind of a scientific inquiry, but also an applied aspect of science which I come to really appreciate for us. So yeah, after after spending time in the Midwest, which do have beautiful forests, they they were once one of the woods, highest wood suppliers for the US. At the turn of the century, lots of oaks and beautiful sugar maples and and beach, so very much a hardwood dominated forest like Southern Maine. And then I headed west out to Oregon State to to work on kind of more conifer dominated systems, and the beautiful Pacific Ocean.
DICKERSON: So I'm curious. I actually agree with you; I'm stunned that Ohio state that does not have college. Is that still true?
WEISKITTEL: Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's still true.
DICKERSON: Wow. Before I make you talk about your research, I'm just curious. Did you have a favorite national park growing up. I mean, what an extraordinary opportunity to kind of be introduced to the to the world in general, but also the treasures that we have as a country.
WEISKITTEL: Yeah, obviously, we didn't hit them all, unfortunately. But the ones that really stuck out my mind, we're we're up in the Great Lakes around the Lake Superior, some really beautiful sand dunes and forest. So those really stuck out to me. And then after I moved west I had to see some of the more infamous national parks like Yosemite, Olympic National Park in Washington. So those those clearly are are top of my list. But obviously being the tree guy, I have to go with Redwood National Park, which I think is one of not as well known, and a relatively under visit Park, particularly in California. But there's just an incredible set of trees there, and a very not extensive national park, but just just quite spectacular as it goes from close to to mountains in a very short, short, spatial distance.
DICKERSON: That one is beautiful. I feel like we almost happened upon it. Many years ago my husband and I had a quick trip to California. And and we you know, we kind of looked at a map. And we're like, Oh, let's go there. So yeah, it's it's it's truly all inspiring actually.
WEISKITTEL: Yeah, there's there's 2 groves there, the Lady Bird, Johnson Grove, and the I guess you could say the formerly tallest tree in the World Grove. Both are are off the highway and off the beaten path, but but quite spectacular and just showcase. The the beauty is just awe-inspiring, of large trees like that.
DICKERSON: So Oregon is where you went to study about conifers, so this might be a good time to re-educate me and anybody listening, the difference between trees and what it is you were studying in Oregon.
WEISKITTEL: Yeah. Yep. So Oregon State which is the beavers and not the ducks. So it's well known; a long, long history of a forestry school.
So the way to kind of break this up is the West tends to be more dominant by what we would consider conifers or cone bearing trees. These are often associated with being evergreen or kind of don't lose their needles over the over the year. More needle bearing trees. It's just because they tend to tolerate drier summers better and are more adapted to fire, which tends to occur more out in the West.
The alternative is hardwoods or non-cone bearing trees which tend to be kind of the maples, the beach, the birch . Just trees deciduous trees that tend to lose their foliage during the during the off season. These tend to require more moisture, and are less adapted to fire, just more more moderate disturbances like we have here in the Eastern Us. So yeah, western, more conifer, dominant, drier, fire dominated systems.
I was studying at Oregon kind of Douglas Fir, which is probably the most well known conifer species named for the great Scottish botanist David Douglas who spent a lot of time out in the Western North America, and discovered or at least named it. Large growing species used a lot for commercial purposes, a lot for external markets. A lot goes to Asia just because of the high quality but used a lot domestically. So obviously, there's a large industry centered around Douglas Fir, and has been for 200 plus years.
So I was studying a disease that affected Douglas Fir and its growth, which which really had a large impact a lot of it in the coastal areas. So Douglas Fir kind inhabits a very narrow belt. It tends to like a lot of moisture, and not too warm temperatures, so it generally grows on the west side of the Cascade Mountains that that occur throughout the Pacific Northwest. Also, when it's commercially managed, it tends to be managed in plantations. So the trees are planted for 50 to 60 years, and the cycle is started over again. So very different than than the type of management we see here in Maine, but very productive, highly valued., and lots of different end uses. So I did both my master's and Ph d. out there looking at the impacts of the Foliar disease. What happens when a tree loses half its foliage? Quick answer as it grows half as fast as it should. And then other part of that was studying the productivity. Because you can go from a very wet set of conditions when you're close to the coast to very dry conditions, and so potentially looking at the impacts of climate change and soil moisture on on tree growth. Just kind of a basic physiology.
DICKERSON: So it sounds like that second part has has been a continuation of your research then here, since we don't really have Douglas firs, but we do have different species of conifers, and the thing I learned at the science festival this year - you were part of a panel that talked about the science and all the different ways of forestry happens in Maine - in which people, I think, probably don't quite recognize everything, you know, from the data science to the products. And I did not realize. I feel like I should have known this, but I didn't. And I did not realize that Maine is this this place where Southern type of forest and Northern type of forest cross. So it sounds like some of your work with the Douglas Fir and how it's impacted by the environment is is applicable from the perspective of understanding the research. But it also sounds like here you have a much larger area research that you could look at whether it's conifer or hardwood. And I will stop there and see if I you can let me know what I got right and wrong.
WEISKITTEL: No, no great memory. Yeah. Maine is unique in a lot of respects. Just given the dependence and the long history of the forest on our rural communities. We're the White Pine State. We're one of a few states with with a tree on the on its license plate. I think Oregon might be the only other state. But yeah, you're right. There's lots of softwoods or conifers here in Maine, and then one of our classic species spruce for white pine but we also have a dominance of a lot of hardwoods right now, sugar maple season, and that's a big part of our culture of history. There's there's paper birch, yellow, birch, red maple, American beach, tons of hardwoods. But you're you're exactly right where Maine sits geographically at about the 40 fifth latitude is kind of a transitional zone. Ecologically, as we go from the southern temperate forest from the Appalachians, these tend to be more hardwood, dominated mesic species, that like rich and long growing seasons. The conifer dominated boreal species, which tend to be the spruce, fir, those generally become more dominant as you go further north, as you get into kind of the cold and short growing seasons of Northern Canada. So yeah, right around Bangor, we see this intermingling of species from the south and intermingling the species from the north. So we we often say that climate change could have pretty dramatic effects here, because you have many species that are either at their northern limit or at their southern limit. And so they're obviously stretched. So small changes in terms of just in typical environmental conditions could really have large implications. And that's a lot of what our research has been focused on.
One of my expertise is in forecasting future forests. So that that is one thing that's unique about forest is having to think about long-term changes. So a typical kind of timeframe for us is generally on the order of magnitude of fifty to a hundred years. Maybe fifty in Douglas, for in a hundred years here in Maine. So a lot of what we think about is, what do you do today? And how does that impact what the forest might look like fifty to a hundred years in the future? And so you got to understand the trees. Basic biology. What are the driving conditions, whether it be soil, or a climate, and how do they interact with with potential management strategies? And then combining all that into kind of some projections of what the future forest, both in terms of species composition but also in terms of structure, might look like.
DICKERSON: So that seems like a really long time-frame in the context of how changes with the climate are happening. I would say, kind of on the downward slope of a roller coaster at this point, but also in with that as part of it, things like different pest invasions that can devastate a forest much faster than a 50 year time-frame or 100 year time-frame. So how do you take that into account when you're trying to forecast good management, practices?
WEISKITTEL: It's really hard. I mean, most predictions are are wrong, even if in the short term we always like to complain about the weather forecast and how they get things wrong. But yeah, it's even harder to think about things on a decadal or century basis. So that's what makes it interesting is you kind of got to go back to first principles and think about kind of the basic biology and what trees are responsive to. And another important aspect is is mapping out alternative scenarios. So just like we can't really forecast the (unknown) or the weather, which has gotten surprisingly good in the in the recent decades. So a lot of that just deals with availability of data and understanding the current conditions. And so I think that's a lot of where we lean on technology and forestry.
Obviously, there's 17 million acres of forest, and you're not going to go out and sample every tree every year to kind of see how it's fairing. And so we have to use kind of this integrated network of ground based measurements that happen throughout Maine, and then link them back to some type of aerial product, whether they be aerial imagery or remote sensing that we get from satellites. So if we do that on a fairly regular basis, we can stitch together basically how the forest is faring on an annual basis. We can look at disturbances and where they're happening. And we can also look at shifts in both species composition as well as growth. So right now, we're about 40 50 years post the last major (unknown) remote work in Maine. Many of our trees are 50, 60 years old, and they're kind of at their peak growth or peak sequestration rates. And so that's a big question right now on our mind. The forest is offsetting well over 75% of the State's emissions. It's a little bit higher in the most recent cycle. And is this sustainable as we go forward? Particularly given the potential impacts of of climate change, or even another spruce bud worm outbreak. And so we keep a close eye on the forest, and I think the positive thing with forest is that you can be proactive, and we know how to manage the forest so that we can make the trees more resilient. We can favor one species over another. We can do more adaptive management techniques like planning certain species. So I think that's that's the goal is to give foresters a suite of tools that they can go out and really try to make the best decisions on every acre of forest.
DICKERSON: This is total ignorance on my part. If the forests that were decimated by the spruce budworm, what happens to those trees that have to be cut down. Can they be used for anything, or are they so damaged that they can't be used? And I'm wondering what happens with what you've seen with the emerald ash borer? Is it the same kind of thing?
WEISKITTEL: Yeah, it's it's a good question. So most of the spruce fur that was killed during the last outbreak was actually utilized. They went in and did either pre or post salvage harvesting. So if a tree dies you can still go in and harvest it like you would a living tree. You do have to be relatively quick, because the trees start to deteriorate and lose quality quickly. I think most of that goes for long term uses. Most spruce and fur is used for structural timbers, a lot of what we call stud wood, which goes by 2x4s. So a lot of that ends up in residential applications, whether it be homes or other other kind of long lived applications. And that is a big part of Maine’s carbon budget. So I, I kind of quoted 75% of the State's emissions are offset by the forest. 60% of that is just the forest itself, and another 15% is kind of through long lived products, like 2 by 4s, or plywood, or other other kind of applications of wood. So I think it's important is that it's a renewable resource, and that it can. It has lots of different applications which not only are important, but also, I think, offset more kind of greenhouse intensive materials like cement or steel. So it's kind of this double whammy of impact.
As for emerald ash borer, this is a little more complicated because the trees tend to die over over several years, and the beetle actually damages the tissue in the inside of the tree, whereas spruce bud worm just causes needle defoliation. Most ash tend to be isolated as well, So they don't tend to grow in large areas. So it's often not economically viable to go in and harvest ash a lot of places. So if you travel through the Midwest you'll see just a lot of dead skeleton trees of ash that were left in place. So I don't think the opportunities to salvage the ash are are as readable, and but I know many of the native American tribes in Maine are thinking about strategies, whether a pre- or post- salvage as they prepare for the (unknown) just given their cultural importance of ash. But each insect is unique and each tree is unique. So that's what makes a lot of this difficult is working at very large scales to. To make this kind of both ecologically and economically viable for any any landowner.
DICKERSON: So you and I talked about this before the science festival, and one of the reasons we wanted to do a session was to try to help folks better understand what it looks like to do forestry nowadays in Maine, and you mentioned aerial surveys and photos and things like that. I would love for you to explain that a little bit more. But before you do, how have the tools of your research changed from when you first started to now? Has technology helped make it - I don't want to say easier. Has it made maybe the burden of collecting data a little bit easier, so that you can get a faster understanding of what's happening in the forest?
WEISKITTEL: Yeah. And we've talked about timescales. So, forests are obviously a slow but extensive ecosystem to monitor. Change happens at at usually small time steps that that we need to pay close attention to. So I think that's where forest are really important in that the monitoring technology can allow us to look at very high resolution almost at a tree level across that 17 million acres which which is really quite unfathomable even just 5 or 10 years ago. So just having that level of information and the availability of that information, and to be able to do it on a desktop computer of of today's technology. I know there's some some landowners in Maine that can pull up individual trees on their own phones and just walk to that, that that tree. So I think this rapid evolution of technology is is exciting, and I do think the future of a for sure looks very different. In the short term, I think a lot of our students are somewhat disappointed that we spend almost as much time in front of a computer as other professions. And that's, I think forestry's always been an early adopter of technology. Whether it be GPS, the geographic position systems that many of the foresters use out the woods. GIS, which is geographic information systems, to learn about all the kinds of spatial data that we have to work with and do our planning process. And I think, as as we talked about this early emergence of remote sensing, I think, what sensing has been talked about in forestry since the ‘70 s with with some of the early launches of the satellites. And I think it's just today that we're starting to realize some of that vision. There's now things like (unknown) that you can get a return interval of of a few days and very high resolution imagery which allows you to detect diseases. It's also of a resolution that you can measure individual tree crowns and identify species rather than these kind of large blobs that have historically been remote sensing. So now that you have the resolution and data, it makes it much, much more useful. So many of our undergrads get traditional forest measurement kind of backgrounds. They learned how to measure tree or height and diameter and all the statistics that go around with that. But they're also exposed to this kind of new generation of doing things a lot more on geographic information systems, a lot more in remote sensing, a lot more on using decision support tools within a within a computerized environment. So I think for sure, today students have to learn just as much technology as many other professions which I think is important to think about as as we hear about kind of the (unknown) and just changes that are happening within the sector.
DICKERSON: I want to circle back to what you said. You know, in Bangor we're we're at the crux of the two species intersecting; would you expect that you'll be able to use these higher tech tools to see how number one that border area is adapting to climate change, but also to see if maybe both sides of it are getting creamed as opposed to one side. It's not winning, but one side thriving and the other side not thriving as much, or maybe the better way to think about it is a line progresses. Is that is that the type of thing that you'll be able to see at the granular level much faster than you would have otherwise?
WEISKITTEL: Yeah. And and we're already seeing that to some degree not that one sides is versus another. What I think is always going to be the cases main's for us is mostly mixed, and it'll be mostly mixed as we go forward. It's just going to be a different mixture of what species are present or which ones are more dominant. But yeah, we've already used satellite technology to document changes in the growing season. So we we already know that the start of the growing season happens 7 to 10 days earlier than normal, and also the fall is occurring 2 to 3 weeks later in the fall which which extends the growing season. So we've been able to monitor that over the last 2 to 3 decades, using remote sensing, imagery and kind of have used that to forecast what future changes are are going to happen.
I think also, we've seen a shift in the species composition, as you might expect to. Maine's forest used to be predominantly softwood, so pines and spruce and fir were much more extensive., particularly (unknown), were more boreal, or depend on cold, colder, colder winters and cooler growing seasons. And so now we're seeing a kind of an expansion of the hardwood species that can tolerate more more fluctuations and climate in particular, drier summers. But I think that's really been what's remarked, or, what's really shocked a lot of people is just how dry the last couple summers have been which really impacts trees. So we've also used a lot of fine scale technology to map the impacts of those of those droughts.
We've seen a lot more outbreaks of forest (unknown) obviously, in the Bangor area. It's a lot of brown tailed moth. But along the coast you've seen a lot more tent caterpillars, or defoliators that really can impact the hardwood species, and those are likely due to some of the conditions in our growing season. But mostly it's related to our our warmer winters, which allows species to to migrate further north than they have historically been.
DICKERSON: So the research that you're doing, would you qualify - because I always have to break it down into little pockets for me - is this basic research, Aaron as as opposed to (unknown)? I mean it. I'm assuming the research that you're doing is not. It's available to the public at large. But there's, you know, you obviously have an audience for it. But you were doing it to figure things out so that multitudes of users could use it is that the correct assumption.
WEISKITTEL: Yeah, no, I I think that's again, let's get back to every part of our conversation. It's really attracted me to forestry, is, it's applied science. So yeah, there's many basic elements of our research of of base basic knowledge, of how trees grow and the climate factors that influence them. But it's taken within a management context. We know that most of the Maine forests will be managed one way or another, and so developing the tools and technology to help landowners make decisions is really the primary motivating part of my my research. And the fun part of my job is I get to interact with a variety of landowners all the way from kind of small folks that own only 10-20 acres, and in their backyards to all the way to people that own more than a million acres. I think the fundamental questions remain the same as as, How are my trees growing, and how will they grow into the future? But obviously the scale, the question changes whether you own 10 acres or a million acres which I find is exciting, trying to find that kind of middle ground where where there's kind of connections between both the land owners and the fact that they're focused on the future for us, I think, is the underlying motivator.
DICKERSON: I think it's really hard to live in Maine and not hear from someone that Maine is the most forested state in the country. But we also have a really interesting culture around private land ownership. And I know in the West, right, the largest landowners, and I kind of put that in quotes, is the Federal Government. There's huge plots of of government land. I'm curious what it felt like for you to go from spending time in Oregon, in the West, where maybe there were very large landowners as well as Federal Government to come here and say, like you said you could go from talking to someone who's got a million acres to someone who's got 10 or 20 like that is a very different conversation I would think.
WEISKITTEL: Yeah, no, you're right. Maine is the most forested state in in the Us. At 89% for us. And if we got rid of lakes and streams, we'd be well over 95%. So I'm always shocked every time I get on an airplane, just to see the extent domains for us. It's really really quite unbelievable. And if you take a look at the kind of the night sky, or the kind of the images of where light pollution occurs, you see Northern Maine, and it's a dark spot, and that's all trees which to me is exciting.
One of the challenges out West is just this philosophical divide on our land tenure and land management. So not only is Maine the most forested state, it's also highly private. It's all the way from very small land owners who have no technical background or interest, or even interest, to very large, wealthy individuals that that own land throughout the US, whereas out West it's really just this public-private debate. And you're right, the Federal Government, particularly the US. Forest Service, is a large owner in the Western US. And there's been a lot of challenges over the last three decades just in terms of shifting public attitudes towards forest management. You used to have active management on National Forest in the western US. That is no longer the case. And so you have a lot of trees that are that are out there and probably approaching conditions that that they'll be dead and dying. And so a lot of that wildfire that we hear about in the news is unfortunately not much of a shock. It's accelerated by climate change, but a lot of it's dealing with with management decisions that were made 20 or 30 years ago. And so you just got the buildup of fuels. And it just takes a few dry years or climate change to accelerate the start of a wildfire. But really, what carries a wildfire is the extent in the availability of fuels. And so, yeah, I think it's a big debate about who should own the land. What should the management objectives be? And and how should the public have access too? And so I think, yeah, it's really rewarding to come to Maine ; I think forestry is an accepted practice here, and people view it in the benefits. A big shocker of coming from the West is just private gates kind of blocking access to land. This can even happen our National Forest, just because of the controversial of logging and forest management activities. So here you you have very few gates. And even though it's private land, it's kind of publicly available, which to me, I think, is is really rewarding because you can talk to people about forestry and the benefits that it that it brings to the landscape.
DICKERSON: I'm going to make you do a little bit of projection, even though I didn't warn you I was going to do this. How do you see the next 5 to 10 to 15 years for Maine's forest? Do you think they'll be any resolution on on where that border of Southern and Northern is coming from. Do you think we'll have figured out how to address the emerald ash borer, so it doesn't decimate all the ash? I'm throwing at the things I've heard of, but I'm happy to hear your expertise on this.
WEISKITTEL: Yeah, no, I think it's a hard one. I mean, I think this is where your expertise is almost as valid as as mine. It's really hard to make these forecast. I think we can make a few informed guesses. But I think the rewarding thing is ultimately the future of our forest is shaped by us, and I think it's very different to a lot of other ecosystems that that really are on their own trajectory, and no matter what we do, we're not gonna change them. But I I feel positive about the forest. So I don't think the story for ash is is is a good one. There might be pockets up north that are protected that the ash borer doesn't get to. It's really going to depend on the severity of our our winters, which obviously continue just to become more and more mild. I do think that forest will remain forest, so that that is a big benefit to to us is that this whole land conversion happened over, the turn of the century is going to continue, and forest will remain forest.
I don't know about the shifting species. I think spruce has a challenging future ahead just because of the warming climate, but a lot of the recent studies have shown red spruce to be growing exceptionally well, which is not what we expected. So I think there's going to be plenty of surprises and things that that we totally didn't expect to to happen. I do think the one that I'm most excited about is just the change in renewable products and the interest in green products. So I really think it's the intersection of both forests and the renewable products that they they generate. So I think there's so many uses that trees can can lend themselves to. And I think it's just addressing this mindset of being in a decarbonized world that's less dependent on fossil fuels. And I think that that's going to involve renewable resources like trees at one way or another. So to me, that's what I'm trying to kind of put forth and say forestry has a future. And if you're really interested in the environment and addressing the negative impacts of climate change, I would encourage people to think about forestry and the opportunities that the profession has.
DICKERSON: I really am encouraged by you, reminding me that it you know it’s not all (unknown). It's human intervention, but not all human insight leads to destruction that we could really can make things better. One of the things that we're trying to figure out how to do is talk about success stories, and I think, forestry certainly has plenty of those.
I'm going to I have one last question for you, and I apologize if you don't think it's fair. I had the opportunity, I think, probably 2 years ago, to talk to Tom Klak, who's working on the American chestnut genetic program. And they did just suffer a setback recently. But I'm curious, and I know it's not your field, but do things like that inspire you? Or do you think it's futile? Or do you think it's just another way to find out how trees work.
WEISKITTEL: No, I think it's it's a positive, I mean, the chestnut was was a prize species for a long time, and a dominant forest all the way throughout the eastern seaboard, and just to have that jextent of the change that almost in a hundred years now you can probably can’t find a chestnut in in the area that it once thrived. So there's a lot of cool science and technology that's gone into revitalizing the chestnut tree, and I think that that deals with very advanced stuff like genetics and genes, (unknown), and all kinds of of neat ideas to me that's great that people are that passionate about an individual species, and are willing to to bring it back and try to restore it on the landscape. So I think there are plenty of positive of case examples like that, and I know that the chestnut orchard up here in Orono has done quite well in in recent years, and trees are kind of get getting beyond the threshold, where they usually get impacted by the blight.
I guess I just point out that that we have a whole landscape of these species. Maine again, is 17 million acres of forest. So it's going to be really hard to pick winners and losers as we go forward. But I think if we can keep options on the table, and think about whether it be chestnut or white oak, or white pine, or other species, that that might be (unknown) to keep our minds open and options flexible as we kind of move through difficult times. But I think you're right, though, that there are some success stories, and I I do think we have to be positive and think about it. I'm reassured by some of this interest in natural climate solutions. So so how can we use our natural environment to to address climate change? Yeah, we can build big vacuums that suck CO2 out of the out of the atmosphere and bury it way down deep. But ultimately, that's very expensive technology, and almost takes just as much energy to to capture the CO2 as you offset. So for me, it's fine in low cost, extensive things, and usually that's where forests kind of put themselves is. Can we better manage the forest? Can we can we do certain practices to increase sequestration? Can we push it towards long the project products that offset our typical fossil fuel based renew fossil fuel products. So I think it's getting creative and keeping all options on the table at this point.
DICKERSON: Well, I think the work that you're doing to help us understand and catalog what is on those 17 million acres is pretty extraordinary and a foundation that we need so that we can do the cool inspired by nature solutions that I actually really think and truly believe are not only possible but critical, to help us get there. So I really appreciate your work.
I feel like there's about a million more things we could go into, but no one's going to listen to that long of a podcast episode. So we're not going to torment people with that. Like I said. I really appreciate your work. I hope the rest of the semester goes well, and I cannot wait to see your next steps.
WEISKITTEL: Well, thanks, thanks for the opportunity to be here. And yeah, if people really are interested, they can find me at the University of Maine, and I really encourage people, whether it's just hiking in your local nature preserve or traveling up to the great Maine North Woods, it's really an exciting time to be part of the forest (unknown) renewable resource, and think what the bright future that forest might have.
The Maine Science Podcast is recorded at Discovery Studios at the Maine Discovery Museum in Bangor, Maine. Maine Science Podcast is executive produced and hosted by me, Kate Dickerson, and edited and produced by Scott Loiselle.
The Discover Maine theme was composed and performed by Nick Parker.
Transcript provided by Maine Discovery Museum, Copyright Maine Discovery Museum.