OPINION

Thursday, June 29 at 6:30pm

The Deadhead Cyclist may be the most unique book ever written about the Grateful Dead. It focuses on the deeper meaning behind the magical lyrics that have stood the test of time for more than 50 years, inspiring multiple generations, and adding wind to the sails of a timeless movement that has brought a hopeful, lifeaffirming message to troubled times.

Tickets: $5 (+ a small processing fee)

Tickets include a coupon for $5 off The Deadhead Cyclist, or a purchase on the event day. The coupon will be distributed at the event. SalloBBS.eventbrite.com

Boulder Bookstore

For the Love of Books Since 1973 1107 Pearl Street • 303.447.2074 • boulderbookstore.com

Except, in a 2020 letter to Congress, 200 of the nation’s scientists wrote, “Reduced forest protections and increased logging tend to make wildland fires burn more intensely.” Or, as a 2016 study in Ecosphere put it: “Forests with the highest levels of protection from logging tend to burn least severely.”

Some might object that “fire risk reduction” isn’t about logging but “thinning.” Of course, that euphemism is used to justify clearcutting and logging mature and even old-growth trees up to 129-years-old, including right now in Jefferson and Boulder counties. What’s more, in cases when it truly is “thinning,” studies find even these “treatments” ineffective at stopping the spread of wildfire.

For instance, a study in Forest Ecology and Management referencing the 2002 Hayman Fire north of Colorado Springs — the largest in almost a century prior to 2020 — found that “fuel breaks and treatments were breached by massive spotting and intense surface fires” and that “suppression efforts had little benefit from fuel modifications.” A Forest Service study discovered that, during 2010’s Fourmile Canyon Fire outside Boulder, thinned forests “burned more severely than neighboring areas where the fuels were not treated.”

A 2021 study in Ecological Applications sums up the reason why, concluding that thinning “can lead to increased surface wind speed and fuel heating, which allows for increased rates of fire spread in thinned forests.” Even thinning followed by prescribed burns “may increase the risk of fire by increasing sunlight exposure to the forest floor, drying vegetation, promoting understory growth, and increasing wind speeds.” And that’s on top of the climate-driven heat and drought already triggering the big fires.

Not to mention the ecological impacts, such as releasing stores of carbon into the atmosphere massive enough to negate U.S. emissions targets, destroying wildlife habitat — including that of species listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act — and contributing to widespread soil compaction and erosion.

For instance, the Antelope Park Forest Health Project is 3,000 acres of logging in the protected Button Rock Preserve west of Lyons in Boulder County. Photos taken on June 7 prove that freshly cut logging roads are currently dumping sediment into a stream flowing directly into the drinking water supply for Longmont. CDPHE’s Water Quality Control Division is currently investigating the complaint. (Photos can be found at bit.ly/AntelopeParkPhotos).

It turns out the Forest Service has actually known how to protect us from wildfire for decades. Indeed, its Rocky Mountain Research

Station’s Fire Sciences Laboratory found that measures such as metal roofs and maintaining defensible space immediately around a structure — recent studies find 15-60 feet to be most effective — can save up to 95% of homes from the most “catastrophic” wildfires.

Then why have so few homes actually been hardened? Because nearly all the taxpayer funding —

Longmont Farmers Market Ftw

I really enjoyed reading your article “Farmers Market Sibling Rivalry” (Nibbles, June 15, 2023). I agree that the Longmont Farmers Market is a fun market for family and kids. I’m a musician and have lived in Boulder since 1974. I can’t believe how much Boulder has changed and I feel sad. Longmont feels a bit like Boulder did in the 1970s.

On Saturday when we played music at the Longmont Market, kids and adults were dancing to our music! And on our breaks we got to visit the awesome vendors and eat a great meal! It’s a great set up for playing music under the shelter.

I especially would like to thank the Longmont community for their generosity! Besides being so fun and engaged, we always collect great and attention — is focused on scientifically debunked “wildfire risk reduction” logging in our public forests.

Josh Schlossberg is an award-winning science writer and sometimes organizer hiding out along the Front Range.

This opinion does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

Letters

tips in Longmont, which is interesting to me as so much wealth has moved into Boulder and tips at the Boulder Farmers Market hardly compare. Thank you, Longmont!

— Laurie Dameron/Boulder

Tech Jobs In Illinois

I have a question regarding the letter in the June 8, 2023 Boulder Weekly, “Bridging the Confidence Gap in the Tech Market.” Why is Hannah Johnson in Downers Grove, Illinois trying to recruit people for tech jobs in Boulder, CO? Seems like there are plenty of people working in tech jobs here in Boulder, recklessly driving their expensive cars (often with expired out of state license plates) and living entitled lives. Maybe some ought to move to Illinois and work at home from there.

— R. Lawrence/Boulder