Trouble in the Rockies

So at risk of making this a depressing blog about the terrible effects of global warming, this post is about an alarming consequence of climate change that I witnessed firsthand this past weekend. (Who knows, maybe all these depressing posts will get the message out to someone, somewhere. Or maybe it's just me venting)

This past weekend I took a trip with my family to go snowboarding at the gorgeous ski resort of Breckenridge, Colorado. I was thrilled to get out west and into the mountains- it had been too long. As we drove up the highway with mountains on both sides, I began to notice more and more that something was wrong with the trees. Thousands of them were dying! My heart sunk as I watched through the window as the car zoomed past more and more of these reddish brown trees, that should be evergreens.



I asked around, and did some research, and found out that this epidemic was caused by invasive pine beetles that are eating the trees away. Apparently, extremely cold winters have historically managed the beetle populations. And people, let's connect those dots. Why haven't the winters been cold enough? Could it be..... global warming? Dare I make that connection?

Of course. People need to start allowing those connections to be made. An estimated 90% of the pines in the Colorado Rockies will die in the next few years because of this infestation. And of course, trees are an essential carbon sink. When they disappear, global warming intensifies even more. A scary snowball effect, for sure.

During that car ride, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the same mountains but with only 10% of the trees. It was a sad image- both aesthetically and in terms of the consequences to the ecosystem and to the climate.