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Climate Change in Our National Parks
Our national parks continue to capture the imagination and admiration of the world. An estimated 275 million people visited national parks in 2007, enjoying the diversity of singular experiences and magnificent scenery offered by the parklands, yet global climate change and environmental degradation threaten their very existence.
Stephen Saunders, author of a recently released report by the Natural Resources Defense Council on climate change in the parks, observes: "If we continue to increase our emissions of heat-trapping gases, a disrupted climate will cause the greatest damage to our national parks ever."
The predicted consequences are dire: If the average global temperature continues to rise, Glacier National Park may lose its namesake features in less than twenty-five years. In the Sierra Nevada, a degree or two of warmer temperatures means less snow, and as a result less snowmelt, which bodes ill for future visitors’ chances of viewing Yosemite’s famous roaring springtime waterfalls (at least in spring).
Rising sea levels may destroy the delicately balanced ecosystem of the Everglades, and a hotter climate may eradicate Joshua trees from Joshua Tree National Park. Grizzly bears in Yellowstone may someday disappear as an invasion of beetles, able to survive the warmer winters, are gradually destroying the whitebark pine, a staple of the bears’ diet.
Enos Mills, one of the early naturalists in the Rocky Mountains remarked, "Within National Parks is room—glorious room—room in which to find ourselves, in which to think and hope, to dream and plan, to rest and resolve." The parks, and our desire to ensure their survival, may also present us with the necessary dreams, hopes, and inspirations to continue this burgeoning and essential trend of greening both our lives and our world.
For more information about the threats climate change pose to our National Parks, visit the Natural Resources Defense Council's excellent website at http://www.nrdc.org/land/parks/gw/contents.asp Please consider making a donation!
From the NRDC Losing Ground Report:
