Talk:Forest dieback

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 January 2021 and 8 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Turtlegeek. Peer reviewers: Mantifa12345.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:40, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Recent Large Addition of Information
I had fun doing this for a college research class, and I realize there are errors and omissions. I had fun doing the project so I plan on continuing to clean up the verbiage, sources, and concepts. Go Wiki! — Preceding unsigned comment added by EAllanAndersson (talk • contribs) 15:41, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Factual Errors
This article is full of factual errors. The "Waldsterben" in Germany was an entirely psychological phenomenon which is viewed as a form of mass hysteria today. Here is one source to begin with: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/waldsterben-die-natur-der-hysterie-12622566.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.49.253.184 (talk) 00:40, 4 March 2014 (UTC)


 * No, while there were certainly major exaggerations and hysteria, the fact of forest dieback, mainly in the 1980s, induced especially by remote air pollution, is hardly questioned. There's also no counter-evidence in the referenced article, only a vague casting of doubt. It literally says (near end of page 3) "There is no piece of land, which is still being irrigated with acid rain, to verify if trees are still standing". The article is a criticism of scientists becoming political actors, by promoting fear and hysteria, thus discrediting science. Something that is surely true for some typical "media experts", who are always pulled in front of the camera, say something exciting or scary, and whose claims are often dubious at best. The forest decline of the 1980s has mostly been ended by scrubbers for pollutants in power stations, and catalyst converters in cars. However, some in regions, forests are still being limed to neutralize acids from decades ago. Later incidents of forest dieback, such as bark beetle epidemics beginning in the late 1990s, and especially after the drought of 2018/19 (now sometimes dubbed Waldsterben 2.0), are not related to the high levels of pollutants and acid rain, as occurred in the 1980s. --BBirke (talk) 11:37, 23 August 2019 (UTC)


 * We lived in the Taunus Mountains north of Frankfurt between 1972 and 1979. On our last walks in the Weilmünster Wolfenhausen area we noticed leaves looking sick in a way that we had not seen before. In 1981 we visited friends in the Eifel and saw the same sick leaves there. As we prepared to leave Germany we were not bothered. Later we remembered, though, that maybe in 1976 we were warned not to eat wild mushrooms, which grew in large quantities in our area. The reason given was cadmium. It was said to be damaging in small quantities. The quantities released from traffic fumes was said to be enough, given that the freeways in the Frankfurt area were carrying lots of European transit traffic. We developed a nickel allergy in that time, and I have heard of many Germans developing that. I do not accept that the massive fumes from traffic and heating systems must, of course, be inconsequential to the soil, flora and fauna. 2001:8003:A070:7F00:455A:37C:56CC:3ADA (talk) 06:05, 18 June 2021 (UTC)