Forest and Friends - May 28, 2026

​Back on schedule and returning to the Eastside, it is Forest and Friends time again!  We had a great session over on Capitol Hill, this week we’re going to be on the other end of the 2 Line, back in Bellevue at Cascadia Pizza (800’ from the BelRed Link stop).  If the weather is nice we’ll take up the traditional place on the patio out back.

​This month we’ll probably talk a little about wildfire (they are coming) and a little bit about the voluntary carbon market with Microsoft’s pullback now a month behind us.  We’ve now had a couple starts in central Washington, which is probably less than folks feared but probably tracks the weather whiplash we’ve been seeing this spring.  That doesn’t change the prognosis for the rest of the year, especially with an epic El Nino raising a hand for the late summer.  It is always a great time to check your air filters or build your Corsi-Rosenthal Box; we’re very likely to have a lot of smoke later in the summer.  We’re on the 5th fastest start to the year since 2000 (1.8M acres), but much of that has been grassland and forests further east – the west hasn’t really started yet.  With little snowpack and lots of rain we’re still drying out and about to be sitting on a bumper flash fuels load.  Tellingly, the SmokeBlog hasn’t started up yet this year but we should be getting close:  June 6th 2025, June 10th 2024, May 18th, 2023 were the last 3 smoke season starts.

​Feel free to join us for pizza and a pint as we talk about climate! We’ll be geeking out, enjoying the taplist, menu, and friendship while we talk forests, startups, GIS, policy, etc.  I’ll be wearing a hardhat and cruising vest – feel free to walk right up and join our table.