This summer, millions of families will flock to national parks like Yosemite, Joshua Tree, and Yellowstone to enjoy the great outdoors and have their kids breathe in some fresh country air.
The only problem: A whopping 96 percent of national parks in the U.S. are plagued by “significant air pollution,” according to a new study by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). In fact, 33 of America’s most-visited national parks are as polluted as our 20 largest cities, the report said.
“The poor air quality in our national parks is both disturbing and unacceptable,” said Theresa Pierno, president and CEO for National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), in a statement. “Nearly every single one of our more than 400 national parks is plagued by air pollution. If we don’t take immediate action to combat this, the results will be devastating and irreversible.”
The culprits? Extracting and burning fossil fuels (specifically coal — surprising, we know), car exhaust, and side effects of climate change like wildfire smoke. The report notes that the large majority of polluted air doesn’t originate in the parks, but gets blown in from elsewhere.
Last year, the most popular parks — like Sequoia, Mojave, and Joshua Tree — recorded up to two months of dangerous ozone levels, mostly in the summer when the parks are always busiest. While bad air quality causes some people to stop visiting national parks, according to the NPCA’s report, there has still been an overall impact on visitors’ health: People are getting allergy and asthma attacks in the parks more often.
Air pollution is actively damaging sensitive species and habitats in 88 percent of national parks — like alpine flowers in Rocky Mountain National Park which, apart from being pretty, provide essential habitat for some of the animals there, like elk.
In 89 percent of all parks, particulate matter in the air creates a visible haze, clouding views as well as lungs. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, for example, is even smokier than its name suggests. The name is supposed to refer to the bluish mist that naturally hangs over the mountains, not the white or yellowish haze of pollution that is now often seen at the park.
What’s the solution? The NPCA urges a swift transition to clean energy sources, a reduction in air pollution for areas neighboring national parks, and for states to stay in compliance with the Clean Air Act despite the loosened federal regulations under the Trump administration. Just last week, as the Guardian pointed out, the Bureau of Land Management moved forward with a plan that would open more than 1.6 million acres of land near national parks in California to fracking.
“At a time when the climate crisis facing the planet is irrefutable, the laws that protect our climate and the air we breathe are being challenged like never before as this administration continues to prioritize polluters’ interests over the health of our people and parks,” said Stephanie Kodish, Clean Air Program Director for NPCA, in a statement.
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Air pollution in some national parks is as bad as Los Angeles
This summer, millions of families will flock to national parks like Yosemite, Joshua Tree, and Yellowstone to enjoy the great outdoors and have their kids breathe in some fresh country air.
The only problem: A whopping 96 percent of national parks in the U.S. are plagued by “significant air pollution,” according to a new study by the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). In fact, 33 of America’s most-visited national parks are as polluted as our 20 largest cities, the report said.
“The poor air quality in our national parks is both disturbing and unacceptable,” said Theresa Pierno, president and CEO for National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), in a statement. “Nearly every single one of our more than 400 national parks is plagued by air pollution. If we don’t take immediate action to combat this, the results will be devastating and irreversible.”
The culprits? Extracting and burning fossil fuels (specifically coal — surprising, we know), car exhaust, and side effects of climate change like wildfire smoke. The report notes that the large majority of polluted air doesn’t originate in the parks, but gets blown in from elsewhere.
Last year, the most popular parks — like Sequoia, Mojave, and Joshua Tree — recorded up to two months of dangerous ozone levels, mostly in the summer when the parks are always busiest. While bad air quality causes some people to stop visiting national parks, according to the NPCA’s report, there has still been an overall impact on visitors’ health: People are getting allergy and asthma attacks in the parks more often.
Air pollution is actively damaging sensitive species and habitats in 88 percent of national parks — like alpine flowers in Rocky Mountain National Park which, apart from being pretty, provide essential habitat for some of the animals there, like elk.
In 89 percent of all parks, particulate matter in the air creates a visible haze, clouding views as well as lungs. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, for example, is even smokier than its name suggests. The name is supposed to refer to the bluish mist that naturally hangs over the mountains, not the white or yellowish haze of pollution that is now often seen at the park.
What’s the solution? The NPCA urges a swift transition to clean energy sources, a reduction in air pollution for areas neighboring national parks, and for states to stay in compliance with the Clean Air Act despite the loosened federal regulations under the Trump administration. Just last week, as the Guardian pointed out, the Bureau of Land Management moved forward with a plan that would open more than 1.6 million acres of land near national parks in California to fracking.
“At a time when the climate crisis facing the planet is irrefutable, the laws that protect our climate and the air we breathe are being challenged like never before as this administration continues to prioritize polluters’ interests over the health of our people and parks,” said Stephanie Kodish, Clean Air Program Director for NPCA, in a statement.
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Air pollution in some national parks is as bad as in Los Angeles
Roughly 25 percent of U.S. national parks are vulnerable to rising sea levels because they’re situated in coastal areas. For years, the National Parks Service has had a report in the works to quantify how higher ocean tides and storm surges could impact its sites. But in April, Reveal found that in drafts of the publication, park officials had censored all mentions of human-caused climate change as an explanation for the encroaching waters.
The story prompted Democrats on the House Committee on Natural Resources to write a letter to the Department of the Interior requesting an investigation into the scientific integrity of the Parks Service. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has said that he never changes reports before they go out.
In a follow-up, Reveal reported that when Maria Caffrey, a University of Colorado research assistant and the study’s lead author, fought the changes, officials said they could take her name off the paper or potentially not release it at all. “The fight probably destroyed my career with the (National Park Service) but it will be worth it if we can uphold the truth and ensure that scientific integrity of other scientists won’t be challenged so easily in the future,” she said.
Finally released Friday, the analysis illustrates how different levels of emissions would increase sea levels and storm surges near 118 national parks over roughly the next century. In the end, science prevailed: The report identifies human-caused climate change as the main culprit behind the rising sea levels that endanger the sites.
Here’s what the collaboration between the National Parks Service and the University of Colorado found:
Rising seas will flood parks. By the end of the century, some sites in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, for example, could experience an ocean rise of nearly two-and-a-half feet. The researchers caution that this would submerge large parts of those parks.
Wright Brothers National Memorial is predicted to face the largest sea-level rise. By 2100, the shoreline near the park is predicted to see up to a 2.7 foot increase under the most severe global warming situation they studied.
Unsurprisingly, islands are at an increased risk. The authors note that for more remote national parks, like those in the Caribbean or the National Park of American Samoa, a storm surge could be particularly ruinous, as it’s difficult to deliver aid to those sites quickly.
Overall, parks in the U.S. southeast are at highest risk for storm surges. For example, a category two hurricane would inundate Everglades National Park.
Now is the time to plan. The authors say that their findings can help inform parks as they adapt to a warming world that endangers their infrastructure and historical structures.
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Officials tried to censor a report on national parks. Here’s what was in it.
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The Trump administration takes censoring science to the next level.
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No talking climate change to Zuck, White House tells scientist.
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No talking climate change to Zuckerberg, White House tells scientist.
The order, which Trump signed Wednesday, directs the Interior Department to review all national monument designations over 100,000 acres made from 1996 onwards.
That includes between 24 and 40 monuments — notably, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, and Mojave Trails in California.
During the review, the Interior Department can suggest that monuments be resized, revoked, or left alone, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said at a briefing on Tuesday. We can expect a final report this summer that will tell us which monument designations, if any, will be changed.
Environmental groups are already voicing opposition. If designations are removed, it could make it easier to eliminate protections and open land to special interests like fossil fuels.
Zinke, a self-proclaimed conservationist, said, “We can protect areas of cultural and economic importance and even use federal lands for economic development when appropriate — just as Teddy Roosevelt envisioned.”
In between further adulations of his hero, Zinke said that he would undertake the “enormous responsibility” with care. “No one loves our public lands more than I,” he said. “You can love them as much — but you can’t love them more than I do.”
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Trump’s latest executive order will review Bears Ears and other national monuments.
New California Sen. Kamala Harris grilled Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo about his views on climate change during a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday.
She asked if he has any reason to doubt current CIA director John Brennan’s assessment that climate change is a contributing factor to rising instability in the Middle East and other areas. Pompeo, a prominent tea partier, said he was unfamiliar with the analysis Harris mentioned. When Harris followed up, asking about whether or not he believes climate change is even happening, Pompeo was equally noncommittal.
Pompeo essentially argued that climate change isn’t relevant to the job he’s being vetted for: “Frankly, as the director of CIA, I would prefer today not to get into the details of the climate debate and science,” he said.
In the past, Pompeo has directly denied the reality of climate change. He has also called President Obama’s environmental agenda “radical” and “damaging,” and said that Obama’s signature climate change initiative, the Clean Power Plan, would not provide “any measurable environmental benefit.”
Unsurprisingly, Pompeo is friendly with the Koch brothers and has deep ties to the oil and gas industry, which has donated over a million dollars to his campaigns.
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President Obama is giving us a parting gift: a bunch of new national monuments.
President-elect Trump tapped Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke to head the Department of the Interior, the cabinet position tasked with management of 500 million acres of federal lands — about one-fifth of the entire United States. As Secretary of the Interior, Zinke’s decisions will impact conservation, recreation, wildlife refuges, endangered species, tribal lands, clean air and water, energy development, and the economy, as well as the beloved National Parks.
So who is this guy anyway? Watch our video above.
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What Trump’s Interior pick means for federal lands and national parks
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