Warming winters are pushing maple syrup farmers to branch out and tap new trees for different syrups, the Boston Globe reports. As climate change, mainly caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, makes winters shorter and warmer, broad swaths of historic maple forests are no longer getting consistently cold enough for long enough to induce sap flow. While tapping diverse tree species could be a way to incentivize more diverse forests and make small syrup businesses more resilient to climate change, significant challenges remain. “Which trees can you tap? Which trees can you extract syrup from? How do you boil that syrup?” said Steven Roberge, a forest specialist with the University of New Hampshire and a maple expert. “Because that’s all really unknown.” (Boston Globe $)
