The Drought

Mother Jones: Here Are 58 Million Reasons to Care About California's Drought - There's a lot more at stake than just trees.

Researchers used laser-imaging technology mounted to a plane to map the tree health of California's forests after four years of drought. They found that things may soon get a lot worse: Up to 58 million trees are near death, and further drought conditions could kill them, releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere, destroying ecosystems and ruining a vital aspect of California's water system.