Kirsten and I are taking a drive through western Colorado next week, working our way up from Durango, through Silverton, Paonia, Steamboat Springs and the Rocky Mountain National Park to Denver for the Mountain and Plains booksellers trade show there. Along the way we are going to see alarming, heartbreaking swaths of rust colored evergreens. Warming winters have allowed waves of beetles to gnaw their way through millions of acres of forests in Utah and across the West.  It’s sadly amusing to watch the western politicians blame a lack of logging.  But the problem is climate change and the beetles are getting worse, not better.  Brandon Loomis has a terrific essay in the Salt Lake Tribune yesterday covering the bark beetle sad state of affairs.  . . . more>>