By Bill Hatcher
“And in no time at all, in the factory I built,
the whole Once-ler family was working full-tilt.
We were all knitting thneeds, just as busy as bees,
to the sound of the chopping of Truffula trees.” – Dr. Seuss
How many people can you fit under a Truffula tree? If your first response is to knot your eyebrows, scratch your head, and ask, “What the hell is a Truffula tree?” please let me explain.
The Lorax – a “children’s book” – was written by Dr. Seuss, and first published in 1971. Many may already know the story; it’s a thinly-veiled message, a fable illustrating the consequences of a free market run amok, and one that has attracted so much debate over the years that I’ll spare you the rehash. But no matter what your opinion – environmentalist blather, a harbinger of Machiavellian tyranny, or a Sign of the End Times – one implication is certain. For even we, tucked safely away in the mountains of Colorado, are intrinsically tied to the sheer number of human beings alive today.
Population: “Biggering and Biggering”
Since The Lorax came out 40 years ago, world population has nearly doubled. Somewhere, sometime late in 2011, maybe as you’re reading this article, a newborn babe will get smacked on its bottom, and we will have reached – and immediately surpassed – the seven billion mark for the first time in human history. Estimates made back in 2000 predicted that if everyone in the world consumed as much as your typical American, we’d require six (by now, seven?), more planet Earths in order to meet everyone’s “thneeds.”
In the U.S., population has ballooned by 10% since the 2000 census. With a little over 312 million people, we’re now the third most populous nation on Earth. As for Colorado, we went from 4.3 million residents in 2000 to just over 5 million in 2010; up by 17% (thanks, in part, to newbies like me), which puts us in first place for growth among all U.S. states for that decade. Other stats show that most of Colorado’s U-Haul transplants come from California, Texas, and a few other states, most settling on the Front Range. In fact, people moving to outlying areas, like central Colorado, tend to be former Front Rangers fleeing encroachment and sprawl. Who could blame them?
In towns like Salida and Buena Vista, incoming middle-aged and retirement-aged folks have pushed the average age up into the 40s, well above the national average of 36.8. Advances in technology and communications have facilitated this shift, allowing people to live in out-of-the-way places and earn incomes from home that are otherwise locally unavailable. For example, incomes earned from jobs based in Chaffee County increased by only 25% between 2000 and 2010, while Chaffee home prices increased by 55% (in spite of a recession).
But even though most counties in central Colorado saw increases in head counts (from migration and births), most towns actually decreased. To a certain degree, this trend followed folks who established seasonal homes here long ago and finally decided to become residents outside of town limits. But the trend also represents people who completely left the area in search of jobs elsewhere, mostly agribusiness as the cost of potatoes rose. This was often the case in the San Luis Valley, where towns like Moffat, Center, Saguache, and Hooper each lost between 5% and 16% of their residents between 2000 and 2010.
On the flipside, college towns like Gunnison and Alamosa grew, thanks to a surge in 18 to 25 year-olds moving onto campus from places close-by, preparing for employment in a challenging environment.
The High Country: “Take the road to North Nitch.”
Of course, there’s more to it than that. As most of us here are aware, the high country also draws a significant number of guests upon whom we depend each year to come and raft, hike, hunt, ski, bike, and otherwise exchange a little loot for a taste of genuine Colorado. In 2010, a record 55.1 million tourists visited Colorado – a 6.1 percent increase over 2009 and the highest total ever reported for the state. Such tourism generated a much-needed economic boost ($10.2 billion) in 2010 and supported nearly 138,000 jobs.
More people mean that more solitude-seeking Lorax-types are searching for increasingly remote places where they can lose themselves in nature and refresh their soul – a commodity for which Colorado is well-known. By virtue of its well-mined history, Colorado is laced with thousands of miles of trails and over 85,000 miles of roads, including the highest paved road in North America (14,120 feet on Mount Evans). Such a web of byways has resulted in Colorado’s backcountry being much more accessible than most other “remote” areas in the nation.
One measure of “remoteness” considers straight-line distance from the nearest road. (Other criteria include distance from the nearest Starbucks or Walmart.) At nearly one-half million acres, the Weminuche Wilderness in the San Juan Mountains is the largest federally-designated Wilderness in Colorado. It’s also the last officially recognized area in the state where a few remnant grizzly bears (Bar-ba-Loots?) may still roam. But even at its most remote, idyllic spot, it’s still only 10 (albeit very rugged) miles to the nearest road.
Meanwhile, all around the state, homes are being built on backcountry mine claims, ski-areas are expanding, and oil and gas leases continue to drill away at the boundaries of “wild” Colorado. All for the stated goal of catering to the “thneeds” of a mushrooming population – that is, us.
Universal Studios and Illumination Entertainment have scheduled to release their film, The Lorax, on March 2, 2012, on what would have been Dr. Seuss’s 108th birthday. Danny DeVito will play the Lorax. I think it’s interesting to note that what began as a children’s book has gained so much attention – pro and con – which may express an expanding population’s expanding awareness, and something nervous and newly sewn into our lexicon; a yen for balance.
I’ll wrap up here not with any kind of “answer” to the question earlier posed, but instead by offering three options.
To the question: How many people can you fit under a Truffula tree?
a. None, there’s no such thing as a Truffula tree. (my own boorish quip)
b. One, if he’s wielding an axe. (literal, yet prudent, Once-lers)
c. Everyone, when it represents shared wisdom honoring our only home. (Loraxes)
Bill Hatcher confesses to felling a few Truffula trees without a permit near his home in the sparsely-settled San Luis Valley, but he’s trying to make up for it by not leaving his trash out to attract any roving Bar-ba-Loots.
