Rounding a bend, we gasp as the Rockies reveal a terrible new truth. Acre upon acre of brown, dead trees are standing where lush green conifers once stood. Like the victims of poverty, they stand tall and proud but destitute, starved o the life and potential that once made them beautiful. Pine bark beetles, it is said, are the culprits. Moving on, we see piles of sticks – the trees that had died earlier and which fell in place.
What hath humankind wrought? The pine beetle population, it seems, may have proliferated due to the effects of global warming, which created an environment more hospitable to the destructive bugs – and therefore less hospitable to the lovely trees. Is this death of the forests attributable, then, to our heedless consumption of earth’s resources?
Moving along we see larger spaces between the dead pines, and the spaces are filled in with the young green saplings of little deciduous trees. Aspens! Their young and graceful beauty is creating the rebirth of the forest! The sense of human guilt subsides. Fear not. The forests know how to regenerate themselves – first with low scrub, then with the leafy deciduous trees, and eventually the pine trees will be reborn.
Despite the flaws of human society, we must remember that Mother Earth knows how to take care of herself.
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