A research project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy is being shut down, according to a recent Associated press article. Scientists working on a decade-long project testing how forests will respond to global warming in the next 50 years have been told to chop down the trees, collect the data and move on to new research. The Energy Department, following the advice of a specially convened panel of experts, believes that chopping down the trees and digging up the soil will allow the first real measurements of how much carbon the leaves, branches, trunks and roots have been storing.