National Parks in Climate Trouble

Picture a world where the Everglades are completely flooded and the Rockies are surrounded by a barren wasteland. All of the glaciers are gone and the grizzly bear is as distant a memory as the stegosaurus. Climate change could make this world a reality, and the nation’s parks could suffer some of the harshest consequences.
Thursday morning, the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization released a report with the Natural Resources Defense Council titled “National Parks In Peril: The Threats of Climate Disruption,” which listed the 25 national parks most at risk due to climate change.
Parks include California’s Yosemite National Park, Montana’s Glacier National Park, Alaska’s Denali National Park and New Mexico’s Bandalier National Monument. Ranging from Alaska to Florida, these parks are slowly losing the features that got them protected in the first place as glaciers melt and native animals die off.
A press conference held today addressed this grave issue with a few ideas on how to save our parks and historical monuments. Stephen Saunders, one of the three principal report authors and RCMO president, gave a vivid depiction of the ongoing climate issue.
“We’ve never lost a national park before,” Saunders explained. “Joshua Tree could lose all of its joshua trees, Yellowstone’s grizzly bears are threatened. If we do not reduce emissions of heat-trapping gasses, we are going to lose our national parks.”
Saunders explained that without immediate change, Glacier National Park could very well lose every last glacier within the next 15 years.
Also leading the conference with Saunders were Theo Spencer, contributing author and Senior Advocate of the NRDC, as well as Bill Wade, chair of the executive council of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees (CNPSR).
The three discussed their concerns about the potential losses in the national park system as well as their hopes for improvement. The three agreed that, with the tenure of newly appointed National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis, things should be looking up. They said parks advocates are suggesting looking into new funding models and possibly changing the uses for entrance fees.
With plans to create new and expanded parks, as well as migration corridors for plants and animals to access easily, the plan to stop these parks and monuments and the ecosystems they were designed to protect from suffering grave damage might prove successful.
“Are there going to be changes in the next 50 years that we can’t do anything about? The answer is yes,” says Spencer. “But we can help limit these changes.”
Most importantly, the three stressed not only immediate action, but collective action from all fronts.
“When a historic structure is destroyed, it is gone forever,” says Wade. “We need to pay attention to these signs before it is too late.”