Oh hi, Colorado Sunday friends. I hope you all are no worse for the wear in this period of at times too hot, and then weirdly not, weather. It’s disorienting.

But these are disorienting times, particularly when it comes to squaring our lived experiences with a changing climate against the narrative being expressed by the current presidential administration that we have, until now, been fed a line by climate scientists.

For my part, I don’t have to remember too hard to recall ever larger Colorado forest fires, decades of drought, the scorching summers and the winters that start late and end early, the higher insurance premiums because of hail, the water anxiety. But what do I do with all of this understanding?

That’s why I like this week’s cover story by Tracy Ross. She caught up with some curious kids who are trying to understand their experiences, learn the science and figure out how to make change on their own terms.

Under heavy smoke, a father and his son stand in the bed of their pickup Thursday watching fire burn on the south rim of Black Canyon of the Gunnison in eastern Montrose County, where drought conditions are severe. (William Woody, Special to The Colorado Sun)

When I headed to Colorado’s first Youth Climate Summit in Carbondale a couple months ago, I didn’t know what to expect. Would the kids there be better versed in climate science than I am? Would they all be activists? Would any climate-change deniers attend? And would I feel better or worse after hanging out with them?

I went into the event feeling pretty hopeless about the climate crisis and bewildered by actions the Trump administration has been taking to undermine climate change research, defund organizations working on it and erase vital information we all should have access to. But I didn’t truly understand the implications until I met Sarah Johnson, a climate literacy educator and co-creator of the summit, who has been on the front lines of climate education for a long time.

Johnson relies on information in the fifth National Climate Assessment, a version of research regularly revised by America’s leading climate scientists and experts since 2000, as mandated by Congress. Among many other things, it outlines essential principles of climate literacy that educators like Johnson use, she says, to take climate education beyond “just the physical science of greenhouse gases and CO2, to something far more holistic,” and show how it touches all parts of human life and helps us understand, accept, try to mitigate and prepare for it in better ways.

But here’s the catch. That report, and the four that preceded it, all disappeared in June, after an executive order from the president. But we only have to look at the flooding last week in Texas to know the world’s climate norms are changing. Which is why that climate summit I went to was so important. And why I was happy to report on it.

READ THIS WEEK’S COLORADO SUNDAY FEATURE

Some Colorado crops are already coming in, others still need tending. Our photo journalists spent time with some of the workers last week and with people for whom an understanding of plants is an academic pursuit. Here are a few of our favorite images.

The Da Vinci Museum of North America in Pueblo on Monday received a particularly precious collection, 12 replica volumes of the Codex Atlanticus, the largest collection of drawings and writings by Leonardo da Vinci. The codices feature studies and sketches for paintings, works on mechanics, hydraulics, mathematics and astronomy, among other things. The originals are housed at Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Italy. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)
Da Vinci Museum Director Joe Arrigo leafs through the “Landscape, Plants and Water Studies” codex. The remaining volumes of the only complete collection of the Codex Atlanticus in North America will remain unboxed until they take their place as an anchor for the library collection at the museum when it opens later this year. (Mike Sweeney, Special to The Colorado Sun)
Harvesters rip ears of sweet corn from their stalks just after dawn Wednesday, the first day of the Olathe Sweet harvest, in a field west of Delta. Sweet corn is delicate and would be damaged by mechanical harvesters. (William Woody, Special to The Colorado Sun)
Tuxedo Corn Company founder and farmer John Harold takes in the view of a field where Olathe Sweet corn was ready for harvest Wednesday morning. (William Woody, Special to The Colorado Sun)
Agricultural workers use hand tools to weed rows of onions in a Tuxedo Corn Company field near Montrose on Thursday. (William Woody, Special to The Colorado Sun)
A worker looks up from his task weeding onions in a field near Montrose on Thursday. (William Woody, Special to The Colorado Sun)
Granville Redmond’s “California Poppy Field,” oil on canvas, painted around 1926, is on display through Sept. 14. (Provided by Denver Botanic Gardens)

The main attractions at Denver Botanic Gardens’ York Street location are outdoors. But head inside to the galleries this summer for two excellent exhibits.

“Blue Grass, Green Skies” features American impressionist and realist paintings from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The paintings illustrate the focus on plants and gardens, in both open spaces and urban areas. Mary Cassett and Childe Hassam are among the artists featured, and many of the landscapes feature California scenes.

Plus, there’s a popup shop with plenty of impressionist books, clothing and more. “Blue Grass, Green Skies” will be here through Sept. 14.

Across the hall is “Contemporary Fiber: Botanicals,” featuring needlepoint, weaving, quilting and more. Works range from the large — “Tempus Fugit (or time flies)” by Ixchel Suarez is an arrangement of tubular hangings — to the smaller, such as Lynne Dees’ “After the Fire,” a woven basket symbolizing rebirth after the 2021 Sylvan fire southwest of Vail. The exhibit runs through Sept. 28.

Curator talks, tours and family-friendly activities related to each of the exhibits are also available.

DENVER BOTANIC GARDENS, 1007 York St., Denver

EXCERPT: To the genre of post-apocalyptic fiction that in recent years has found footing in hot-button topics like climate change and pandemics, author Tim Weed has added time travel to his expansive novel “The Afterlife Project.” In his excerpt, Weed introduces a team desperately pursuing subjects for a gambit to overcome a pandemic’s catastrophic effect on human fertility.

READ THE SUNLIT EXCERPT

THE SUNLIT INTERVIEW: Weed, who grew up in the Denver area, saw his idea for the novel take off thanks to a conversation he had with an astrophysicist on a National Geographic expedition for which he served as a traveling lecturer. The scientist’s literal back-of-the-napkin calculations plotted a basis for one-way time travel, which figures heavily into the plan to save humanity. Here’s some more of the Q&A:

SunLit: What did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter?

Weed: Don’t write to the market. It’s really a much better idea to write what’s truly organic to your heart and your imagination; to write the book that you would truly want to read, but that doesn’t yet exist. I mean it’s OK to think about the market before you start, and you’ll need to think about it when it comes time to pitch and sell it. But I really advise against focusing on the market while you’re writing.

I wrote a weird, dark, unconventional, objectively far-fetched novel. I didn’t set out to make it that way, it just happened. I couldn’t not write it; it turned out to be one of those books that felt like it was being dictated from on high.

READ THE INTERVIEW WITH TIM WEED

LISTEN TO OUR DAILY SUN-UP PODCAST WITH THE AUTHOR

A curated list of what you may have missed from The Colorado Sun this week.

If only they could hit, field or pitch, the Colorado Rockies might be enjoying something better than an epically bad year. (Drew Litton, Special to the Colorado Sun)

🌞 Group living situations that served many of us well as college students may be a solution for many others in old age. For the most recent story in our Aging in Colorado series, Jennifer Brown visited a house in south Denver shared by multiple men that she says felt a little like a “Golden Girls” episode.

🌞 Speaking of retirement, investments by the Colorado Public Employees’ Retirement Association significantly outpaced its target for annual returns in 2024, but Brian Eason reports that the rest of the news around the retirement plan for state employees is less-than awesome.

🌞 So this happened: Lawyers for MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell got caught using artificial intelligence to generate briefs in his defamation defense, mostly because, as Olivia Prentzel writes, the bots made up court cases to cite.

🌞 Why are there so many break-through cases of measles among people in Colorado who are fully vaccinated? John Ingold looked into it, and it’s basically a numbers problem.

🌞 It took awhile to get to the table, but the town of Nederland has inked an agreement to buy Eldora Mountain Resort from Powdr Corp. Tracy Ross reports some of the still-vague details of the deal.

🌞 What does it take to scrub PFAS from soil? Michael Booth and Mike Sweeney took a trip to Peterson Space Force Base to check out some new techniques for erasing so-called forever chemicals.

🌞 It’s not just you. There really are a lot more wild turkeys running around the urban landscape. Dan England started his hunt for the reason in the parking lot of a strip mall in Greeley.

🌞 So how are those innovating apprenticeship programs working to chip away at Colorado’s teacher shortage? Pretty well in some districts, Erica Breunlin learned.

🌞 Good news! A Colorado Parks and Wildlife campaign, including the threat of expensive tickets, to get people to wear life jackets seems to be working. Fewer people are drowning in Colorado lakes and rivers this year than at this time last summer, Olivia Prentzel reports.

Thanks for starting your Colorado Sunday out with us this week. We appreciate your time and your support. As always, there’s plenty of room at the brunch table, so if you know someone you’d like to invite along for our weekly conversation, forward them a copy of this newsletter and this link: coloradosun.com/join.

— Dana & the whole staff of The Sun

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