Grappling with Climate Change
Never let it be said that going back to college is overrated. And if you're going to do it, do it right. While I did my undergrad work at West Virginia University, today a member of the Big East, this week I checked into Stanford of the Pac-10. The difference? The campus adorned with palm trees, eucalyptus trees, flowers that bloom year-round, and what Bruce Springsteen would refer to as "girls in their summer clothes." But this time around I wasn't a student, per se, but rather a "visiting scholar." I told one group that I really wasn't much more than a "writer dude," but nonetheless the university card spells it out right in bold -- v-i-s-i-t-i-n-g s-c-h-o-l-a-r. And they tossed in an office for good measure.
What has brought me to Stanford for a week or two is a chance to learn more about climate change in general and how it is affecting national parks specifically. I've long followed national park issues, having covered them for The Associated Press during a previous career, written about them in guidebooks, and most recently tracked them and all that swirls around them on National Parks Traveler (www.nationalparkstraveler.com), a web-zine that follows "commentary, news, and life in America's parks."
Whether you buy into climate change or not, this is a thorny topic, and a meaty one at that. It's one of those things that creates a lot of discussion, but which can be hard to immediately spot unless you're an "ologist" of some sort with a keen eye for spotting climate-related change. For many of us, climate change is something that won't really come home to roost until another 50 or so years slip by, long after most of us are dead and buried. As a result, you have to take it on faith that there really is something gone wrong with the atmosphere. And accept, humbly, that our kids and grandkids will be stuck with the mess.
Indeed, one actual scholar whom I met told me that the fight we're currently involved in is not for the coming 50 years, but rather the 50 years after that. In other words, we Baby Boomers have already dropped the ball. Sobering news for the "instant gratification" generation, no? But there are signs of what's to come. If you can afford it, head to Alaska and look at the breakup of sea ice, the thawing of permafrost, the retreating glaciers. Speaking of glaciers, take your kids to Glacier National Park now, before the rivers of ice are gone, which they're expected to be before 2030 arrives. Or head over to Rocky Mountain National Park, where there's a pitched battle with mountain pine beetles that are steadily boring into acre-after-acre of lodgepole pines, which then die and, often, turn into towering infernos when lightning strikes.
These grain-sized bugs evolved right along with lodgepoles, so they're not that terribly unusual. But the warming weather of recent years has given them new life, allowing them to negotiate a lifetime in one, not two, years, and to move higher in terrain than they're supposed to. As a result, they're reaching truly high-country stands of whitebark pines. In the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, these pines are key for grizzly bears, which chow down on their calorie-rich pine nuts before heading into hibernation. Take the whitebark out of the ecosystem and you impact not just grizzlies, but also Clark's nutcrackers, red squirrels, and even trout, as these towering trees long have acted as snow fences. Come spring, the trees' branches shade the snows that drifted during the winter, thus allowing for a slow melt. Remove the trees and you can impact watersheds.
Closer to home you might worry about how long the desert bighorn sheep in Canyonlands, Arches and Capitol Reef national parks can hang on in the face of changing precipitation patterns and evaporating waterholes.
That's the proverbial nutshell of climate change and the national parks. There are many, many more ramifications tied into gateway towns, economics, recreation and how we choose to, or can actually protect these iconic landscapes. The only question is how many of us care enough to make a difference?
Park City local Kurt Repanshek is the author of several guidebooks on national parks and a frequent contributor to Park City Magazine. He's a visiting scholar at Stanford for the next two weeks and agreed to blog about his experience for parkcitymagazine.com. Thanks, Kurt!
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Reader Comments:
"As a result, you have to take it on faith that there really is something gone wrong with the atmosphere..."
Repanshek finally comes clean about his religious zealotry concerning anthropogenic global warming.