{"id":30,"date":"2026-03-05T21:38:58","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T21:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/pikespeakclimatestories\/?p=30"},"modified":"2026-03-05T21:44:05","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T21:44:05","slug":"from-tomatoes-to-barbed-wire-how-one-colorado-ecologist-sees-climate-capitalism-and-the-future-of-the-front-range","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/pikespeakclimatestories\/2026\/03\/05\/from-tomatoes-to-barbed-wire-how-one-colorado-ecologist-sees-climate-capitalism-and-the-future-of-the-front-range\/","title":{"rendered":"From Tomatoes to Barbed Wire: How One Colorado Ecologist Sees Climate, Capitalism and the Future of the Front Range"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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“Colorado plains” by DJM Photos is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Bella Houck<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. \u2013 When longtime ecologist and Colorado College educator Lee Derr wants to explain climate change, he doesn\u2019t start with charts or policy papers. He starts with tomatoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colorado Springs, he says, is one of the fastest-warming metropolitan areas in the United States when it comes to nighttime temperatures, a shift most people sleep through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou will see that Colorado Springs is one of the metropolitan areas of the United States of the 48 contiguous, that is showing some of the highest increases in nighttime temperatures,\u201d Derr said. \u201cAnd the population\u2019s asleep then, and they don’t care about nighttime temperatures. They only care about daytime temperatures, so no one is noticing it. But as a gardener, it’s way easier to grow tomatoes now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Derr, a gardener with 40 years of notes on frost dates, the signs of a changing climate are written in soil and seed. \u201cI have 40 years of experience when the last frost was in the spring, when the first frost was in the fall. And I can see a creep that is shortening the winter,\u201d he said. \u201c[Winter] used to be about September 15 to May 15. Now they\u2019re probably back about October 15 to April 30.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This interview was conducted as part of the Pikes Peak Climate Archive, an ongoing project documenting local stories of climate and environment change around Colorado Springs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Life in the Field<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Derr\u2019s path to becoming one of the region\u2019s most outspoken ecological voices was not straightforward. Raised in Pennsylvania Piedmont, he came west to Colorado State University for school, worked in outdoor education in Summit County, raced bicycles for a time and eventually found himself in a sixth-grade science classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI said I would never be an educator,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI would have taken that bet a million to one.\u201d But colleagues who watched him work with kids at places like Keystone Science School urged him toward teaching. \u201cThey said you can’t do this forever,\u201d he said of seasonal outdoor work. \u201cSo\u2026 I ended up teaching sixth grade science.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derr later began mentoring graduate students in education and eventually joined the faculty at Colorado College as an adjunct, working with Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) candidates in science education. In recent years, he stepped back from formal teaching and now pieces together work as a contract land steward with Palmer Land Conservancy, visiting conservation easements across the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He jokingly calls this phase \u201cretreading, not retiring.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ranchers, Retirement and the Price of an Acre<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On the plains east of the mountains, Derr sees another front in Colorado\u2019s climate and justice story: who can afford to stay on the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a contract land steward, he visits ranches and farms protected under conservation easements\u2013legal agreements that limit development and keep land in agricultural or open-space use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor about 50 years, by an act of Congress and the IRS you are capable of severing your development rights.\u201d he said. \u201cSo keeping the land intact as a singular property. And the easement is a document that determines the uses that are now permissible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His first easement visit was with an 84-year-old rancher named Robert, on Colorado\u2019s shortgrass prairie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Why did you do this?\u2019 And he said, well\u2026 \u2018See that ridgeline over there?\u2019 He said, \u2018I don’t know what the internet is, but that land used to be a ranch of 24,000 acres.\u2019 And it was sold and they platted it\u2026 and you then are capable of selling those individual plats,\u201d Derr recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn Colorado, it’s usually 35 or 40 acres,\u201d. Once that happens, the old ranch landscape is gone. \u201cOnce you break it up, it will never be an ecologically sustainable system,\u201d Derr said. \u201cAnd this is in the short grass prairie of Colorado.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind those choices, Derr says, are economic realities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost ranchers are cash poor,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they have 10,000 acres in Colorado, it takes at least 40 acres per Animal Unit, at least. So, 4000 acres, allows you to have 100 cows. 100 cows\u2013 you might have had an annual reported income of $30,000, $40,000. You have no way of building up a retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo for many families, if the children didn’t want the ranch, the only way you can retire is to sell off your land,\u201d he said. Other ranchers often cannot afford to buy it. Developers can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Easements as a Different Kind of Deal<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Conservation easements, Derr argues, change the math.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe nice thing about a conservation easement is that it diminishes the value of the land, the accessible value,\u201d he said. On the outskirts of Colorado Springs, that means \u201cthe principal person who is going to buy it is a developer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat it does is diminish the land value, because it’s going to stay in agriculture,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd now someone can probably purchase it who can afford to keep it in ranching.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colorado sweetens easements with tax credits, which landowners can sell to corporations for cash. Those credits are valuable to companies with large tax bills but not to older ranchers with low taxable income. \u201cTax credits are saleable, [developers who] want them can buy them for about 92 cents on the dollar,\u201d Derr said. \u201cThey save eight cents\u2026 and then that money goes to Robert.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derr offers another famous example from western Colorado: a peach orchard under easement near Palisade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe family was a 30\u2011year\u2011old couple, and they had two kids and they had just purchased a peach orchard that was under easement because they could afford it, and all the current peach growers were all 65 and above, and they’re ready to retire,\u201d he said. The easement gave older growers some remuneration and ensured the land stayed in agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The younger farmer had gone to school for computer science, Derr said, and brought \u201cskills in internet marketing\u201d to the orchard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo if it wasn’t for conservation easements, there would not be a Palisade peach,\u201d Derr said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Water drop on barbed wire fence” by \u2665 ~ Chaurasia ~ \u2665 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bison to Blue Stem<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Derr\u2019s work on the plains is informed by a long ecological view of the Great Plains grasslands, including eastern Colorado.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBefore the westward expansion\u2026 bison, pronghorn, elk, grizzly bears. Everybody was out there on the prairie,\u201d he said. Bison herds, held together by wolves, acted like a moving mowing and fertilizing machine. \u201cYou never came back to the same area unless it was good grass,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe grasslands all the way from mid-Kansas, to the Rocky Mountain Front were the grasslands [that] evolved with this periodic mowing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of his key examples is blue stem, a deep-rooted grass in the central and northern plains. \u201cBlue stem\u2026 has roots that are 16 to 25 feet deep,\u201d he said. In drought, \u201cblue stem say, \u2018No problem.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The arrival of private property and fencing disrupted that system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we did was we invented barbed wire, and we shot all the bison,\u201d Derr said. \u201cAnd so with barbed wire, you can throw a cow out there\u2026 and you let them eat what they want to eat, they go around and they say, \u2018I like this plant, I like the blue stem because it’s highly nutritious, but I don’t like this other stuff\u2019. So what happens over a couple years you have all these less desirable plants and the biodiversity crashes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou put one horse on 40 acres, it’s toast,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Powering Colorado: When Capitalism \u201cWorks\u201d for Climate<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If barbed wire and subdivision show capitalism\u2019s role in ecosystem decline, Derr also points to a very different story in Colorado\u2019s electric grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight now, the cheapest form of energy for the electric grid is renewables,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause you’re not paying every day to buy more coal or oil. Once you have the infrastructure, you’re no longer paying, except you’re paying a little surcharge to the landowner who has those.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He traces Colorado\u2019s shift to a 2004 citizens\u2019 initiative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThrough the 90s, the people of Colorado kept getting wise and saying, we need to have renewable energy. We need to move to renewables. And one of the parties at the state level kept pushing for more renewables, the other party kept resisting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When lawmakers hesitated, citizens threatened to go around them. \u201cThey polled the citizens of Colorado, and they said, \u2018If you don’t pass this as representative government, we’re going to do a citizens initiative\u2019, which is a change in the state constitution,\u201d he said. \u201cIn 2004 we voted that by 2025 we would have 25% renewables.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Utilities responded by investing in efficiency and building wind and solar. \u201cWe outstripped what the citizens wanted us to do,\u201d Derr said. \u201cWe almost doubled it. 43% of your electrical energy is renewables.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who\u2019s Responsible?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For all the policy shifts and market signals, Derr comes back to a harder question: what is the responsibility of individuals in an unequal world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I hop on a plane, if I drive my car, if I consume carbon\u2013 does the individual have a responsibility? What does my little contribution do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is skeptical of carbon credits, including those used by institutions like Colorado College to claim \u201ccarbon neutrality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo carbon credits really count?\u201d he asked. \u201cThere’s a lot of evidence that they’re not worth the effort. They give you a feel good\u2013\u2018I’m a good person.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He worries that some proposed geoengineering schemes, such as putting reflective aerosols into the upper atmosphere, are attractive precisely because they fit a familiar pattern: high-tech solutions, financed by capital, deployed at scale, with uncertain consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere’s lots of money in Wall Street who are willing to throw money into geo engineering, which is, instead of cutting back on our carbon, we’re going to manipulate the planet,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you pay someone to do it, you bet they will do it without thinking of the consequences. Because every plant on this planet, if you reduce the solar incidence, plants are going to feel it first.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Derr, the questions are larger than one ranch, one wildfire season, or one city\u2019s renewable portfolio. They are about how a state like Colorado, wealthy by global standards, ecologically diverse and politically divided, chooses to use its land, energy and power in a warming world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bella Houck COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. \u2013 When longtime ecologist and Colorado College educator Lee Derr wants to explain climate change, he doesn\u2019t start with charts or policy papers. He starts with tomatoes. Colorado Springs, he says, is one of the fastest-warming metropolitan areas in the United States when it comes to nighttime temperatures, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1827,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/pikespeakclimatestories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/pikespeakclimatestories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/pikespeakclimatestories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/pikespeakclimatestories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1827"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/pikespeakclimatestories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/pikespeakclimatestories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/pikespeakclimatestories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/36"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/pikespeakclimatestories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/pikespeakclimatestories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/pikespeakclimatestories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}