October 1, 2009, 1:05 pm
National parks in Colorado will be on the Natural Resources Defense Council's list of America's 25 parks most vulnerable to climate change.
The NRDC and Stephen Saunders of the Denver-based Rocky Mountain Climate Organization on Thursday will issue a report on the impacts of climate change on national parks. Those impacts include melting glaciers, loss of plant life and rising sea levels, according to an NRDC statement.
Saunders testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in August in Estes Park that climate change presents a serious threat to Rocky Mountain National Park.
In his written testimony, he said that Colorado’s Rocky Mountain and Mesa Verde national parks are among the 12 national parks in the West the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization believes are most at risk from climate change.
Saunder said that the bark beetle spread and resulting death of “virtually every mature lodgepole pine tree in Rocky Mountain National Park” illustrates the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s warning that global warming will greatly increase pest and disease outbreaks in forests.
Climate change, Saunders warned the subcommittee, could slash Rocky Mountain National Park’s alpine tundra in half, while pika populations native to high alpine talus slopes are already disappearing.
Other national parks the NRDC’s report will identify as threatened are in nearly every Western state and several eastern states.
Online:
www.nrdc.org
http://energy.senate.gov/public/_files/SaundersTestimony.doc
