Click the link to read the article on the KUNC website (Lucas Brady Woods). Here’s an excerpt:
Conrey has been a beekeeper outside of Berthoud for more than 30 years, and she has seen honey production dwindle to just a fraction of what it was when she started. She attributes the decline to the rise in pesticide use, monoculture crops and lawns, urban sprawl, water shortages and soil health. She now has to cultivate many different bee colonies up and down the Front Range to maintain her livelihood.
“Our livelihood depends on the environment,” Conrey said. “So we pay attention to it, like anybody engaged in ag is paying more attention to the weather and to forecasts and extreme weather events, et cetera.”
Now, with the Colorado primary election just a few days away, she wants to see candidates talking more about climate change, and not just because of the impacts on agriculture. She believes fixing basic environmental problems–like soil, vegetation and insect health–will help create solutions to the big issues like drought and air quality. To do that, though, she said candidates need to base their policies on scientific evidence.
“Science is what it comes down to, and trying to actually follow the science,” Conrey said. “And there’s a lot of great science out there.”