How is air pollution affecting US national parks?
How is air pollution affecting US national parks? Air pollution can create a haze that affects visibility, dulling national park views by softening the textures, fading colors, and obscuring distant features.
What is destroying national parks?
The consequences of the climate crisis – more wildfires, devastating drought, sea level rise, flooding, ecological disease – are plaguing the country's national parks. Most recently, unprecedented flash flooding overwhelmed Yellowstone National Park and some of its surrounding areas.
What are the major environmental threats to national parks?
Drilling, mining and logging near park borders, air and water pollution that drifts or flows into our parks, and even the waste that some visitors leave behind are all threats our national parks face.
What affects national parks?
Disasters like floods and wildfires affect the national parks and the communities whose economies depend on them. In the visualization below, see the trends for every National Park Service unit in all 50 states.
How do you keep national parks clean?
The simplest rule to remember when visiting a national park: if you bring it in, pack it out and leave nothing behind. To help limit the effects of trash on the landscape, many national parks are starting to compost trash and food waste thrown away by park visitors.