At this point, there's little doubt that a crucial impetus for serious climate change action will be the bottom-up impacts of local actions taken in response to locally-perceived threats and opportunities. "Local" here is a scalable concept. Compared to the US as a whole, California is a local jurisdiction which has passed a landmark global warming law that outside Texas oil companies are trying to take out. That's a local conflict compared to the US or the whole globe. And battles at that level will prove crucial. But of course, one can get a whole lot more local than that, since California is pretty big state. And a new report does just that.
"California's National Parks in Peril: The Threats of Climate Disruption" is joint report from the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Counsel. It includes new local climate projections for ten national parks in California: Death Valley National Park, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Joshua Tree National Park, Kings Canyon National Park, Mojave National Preserve, Muir Woods National Monument, Point Reyes National Seashore, Redwood National Park, Sequoia National Park, and Yosemite National Park.
As the report explains:
If future emissions of heat-trapping pollutants are what the California Climate Change Center calls "medium-high," the average of the projections from the six climate models is for Yosemite National Park to get 7.5°F hotter by 2070-2099 than it was in 1961-1990. To put that in perspective, that would be enough to make Yosemite 0.3° hotter than Sacramento historically has been. Similarly, Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks would become hotter than the Sonoma County coast. Point Reyes would become as hot as Santa Barbara has been.
These temperature comparisons may not be that meaningful for folks outside of California. On the flip is a brief overview of significant--even dramatic--effects that don't require any such local knowledge:
Among a broad range of threats to the ten national parks identified in the report are:
Joshua trees, which need winter freezes to set seeds, are projected to disappear entirely from the national park named after them, and from most of Death Valley National Park and Mojave National Preserve.
In Redwood National Park and Muir Woods National Monument, higher temperatures already have reduced by 30 percent the coastal fog that redwoods depend on for nearly half their water their water supply. A continued decrease in the fog could keep the coast redwoods from growing to the astonishing heights that make them the world's tallest trees.
In Sequoia, Kings Canyon, and Yosemite, giant sequoias in the mountains parks may not be resilient to the water stress and increased wildfire expected with rapid climate change.
Yosemite Falls, mostly fed by snowmelt, could dry up more often and earlier in summers, depriving many park visitors of one of the world's greatest sights.
In Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon, as the parks have gotten hotter and drier, pine and fir trees are dying more quickly. The death rate of trees has nearly doubled over just the past two decades.
Sea-level rise of 2.0 to 4.7 feet in this century, as projected by the California Climate Change Center, would lead to seas washing over in storms and then permanently inundating low-lying areas in Point Reyes National Seashore, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and Redwood National Park. At risk are beaches, wetlands, other wildlife habitat, historic structures, highways and roads, campgrounds, picnic areas, and a visitor center.
In Yosemite, mammals already are moving upslope to stay ahead of rising temperatures. About half of small mammal species in Yosemite now live at elevations different from where they were found nearly a century ago. Most have moved to higher elevations, by an average of about 500 yards. Along the coast, seals and shorebirds could lose habitat to a higher sea, and many may abandon the coastal national parks as suitable areas disappear.
Even if you don't care a damn about nature, there's a significant economic impact here as well:
Also threatened would be the contribution the parks make to California's economy. National parks in the state draw over 34 million visitors a year. Their spending contributes $1.24 billion to the state's economy and supports over 19,000 jobs.
By bringing the impact of global warming down to a smaller scale--but one that still dwards us--reports like this, and organizing activities in response and support of them can help us gain traction outside the pernicious influence of the Versailles media. It's an orientation that may well prove crucial for the task of saving the planet.
P.S. While California has natural attractions that draw people from around the world, every state in the nation has places that are special to those who live there. And all of them are threatened by the future that is coming if we don't take dramatic action. You can see quite clearly how sweeping the changes will be, just by looking at these maps comparing the frequency of 100+ degree days per year in the past, and in two different future scenarios:
STATE BLOGS
Powered by: SoapBlox