LA Times: The pine trees cradling this mountain town are dying, turned rusty red by a beetle that is destroying the Rockies’ forests. The brittle corpses are an eyesore as well as a major fire hazard. When they collapse, they make hillsides unstable, increasing erosion and damming streams that feed into the Colorado River, which provides drinking water to seven states and Mexico. But Randy Piper is trying to focus on the positive. He moved here four years ago, scanned the …