Killer beetles, tinderbox forests: Climate change costs center stage at Supreme Court
BOULDER, Colo. -- To walk deep into the mountain forests at the doorstep of the Rocky Mountains, is to encounter the fragrant majesty of century-old ponderosa pine trees famous for lining ski slopes, National Park trails and residential neighborhoods.
Now, those iconic Colorado trees -- already under strain from record heat and prolonged drought -- are threatened by a rapidly growing outbreak of silent killers: the mountain pine beetle .
The size of a grain of rice, the native forest insect can attack a tree in a matter of weeks, feeding upon its critical tissues and effectively strangling it from within.
Read the original report
Opens ABC News in a new tab