On August 25th, take a moment to say “happy birthday” to the National Parks Service. It’s turning 100 years old. And my, how some things have changed in that century. Take, for example, how the parks deal with bears.
Today, the Park Service characterizes the possibility of seeing live bears – black, grizzly or polar in dozens of parks across the country – as a very special but far from guaranteed experience. It reminds park visitors that bears are wild animals, and it directs them to follow “bear etiquette.” That code of conduct includes the following exhortations:
– Respect a bear’s space.
– Never approach, crowd, pursue or displace bears.
– Let bears eat their natural foods.
It was not always so. In the early 20th century, according to Rachel Mazur’s book “Speaking of Bears,” bear-feeding spectacles were major attractions.
By the 1930s, calls to stop feeding the bears grew as the trash-nourished population swelled and more human-bear run-ins occurred. But it would take decades – and many killings of “nuisance bears” – for the Park Service to arrive at its current view that it is best to stay out of bears’ way and lock human food in bear-proof containers.
Epping Forest is a heavily regulated place. First designated as a royal hunting ground by Henry II in the twelfth century, with severe penalties imposed on commoners for poaching, it has since 1878 been managed by the City of London Corporation, which governs behavior within its bounds using forty-eight bylaws.
The forest is today almost completely contained within the M25, the notorious orbital motorway that encircles outer London. Minor roads crisscross it, and it is rarely more than four kilometres wide. Several of its hundred or so lakes and ponds are former blast holes of the V1 “doodlebug” rockets flung at London in 1944.
Yet the miraculous fact of Epping’s existence remains: almost six thousand acres of trees, heath, pasture, and waterways, just outside the city limits, its grassland still grazed by the cattle of local commoners, and adders still basking in its glades. Despite its mixed-amenity use—from golf to mountain biking—it retains a greenwood magic.
Merlin Sheldrake is an expert in mycorrhizal fungi, and as such he is part of a research revolution that is changing the way we think about forests. For centuries, fungi were widely held to be harmful to plants, parasites that cause disease and dysfunction. More recently, it has become understood that certain kinds of common fungi exist in subtle symbiosis with plants, bringing about not infection but connection.
These fungi send out gossamer-fine fungal tubes called hyphae, which infiltrate the soil and weave into the tips of plant roots at a cellular level. Roots and fungi combine to form what is called a mycorrhiza: itself a growing-together of the Greek words for fungus (mykós) and root (riza). In this way, individual plants are joined to one another by an underground hyphal network: a dazzlingly complex and collaborative structure that has become known as the Wood Wide Web.
Researchers from Harvard and Colorado State have found that Americans would be willing to pay 30 times more than the current annual appropriation in order to preserve and maintain the US National Park system.
According to the study, the US public would pay more than $90 billion a year to sustain and protect America’s iconic places. Yet the US National Park system currently receives less than $3 billion a year from Congress and suffers from a multi-billion dollar backlog of corroded and broken infrastructure.
Nearly 95 percent of citizens who participated in the study said national parks are important to them. Is there anything else Americans agree on nearly unanimously?
Not only is the park service’s annual budget insufficient for its current needs, it is about 15 percent lower, in today’s dollars, than it was in 2001. In addition, the service has a maintenance backlog of about $12 billion for infrastructure projects, such as campgrounds, trails, bridges and roads. In other words, the National Parks as they’re currently funded are decaying, because we’re not maintaining them.
Private philanthropy has already played a role in shoring up many individual parks, but the park system doesn’t currently have a long-term philanthropic funding structure. So researchers are pushing for an endowment for the parks, similar to the common funding mechanism used by universities, museums hospitals and others institutions.
The Komi Republic in northern Russia is renowned for its many lakes, but sites contaminated by oil are almost just as easy to find in the Usinsk oilfields. From pumps dripping oil and huge ponds of black sludge to dying trees and undergrowth — a likely sign of an underground pipeline leak — these spills are relatively small and rarely garner media attention.
But they add up quickly, threatening fish stocks, pasture land and drinking water. According to the natural resources and environment minister, Sergei Donskoi, 1.5m tonnes of oil are spilled in Russia each year. That’s more than twice the amount released by the record-breaking Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
The main problem, according to the natural resources ministry, is that 60% of pipeline infrastructure is deteriorated. And with fines inexpensive and oversight lax, oil companies find it more profitable to patch up holes and pour sand on spills — or do nothing at all — than invest in quality infrastructure and comprehensive cleanups, according to activists.
While Russia’s oil and gas production provides more than half the state budget every year, it exacts a huge price on the environment and local residents. A state energy statistics bureau told Greenpeace it had registered 11,709 pipeline breaks in Russia in 2014.
Northern rivers such as the Pechora carry 500,000 tons of oil into the Arctic Ocean every year, the state hydrometeorology and environmental monitoring service reported in 2011.
What would happen if the federal government ended its subsidies to companies that drill for oil and gas?
The American oil and gas industry has argued that such a move would leave the United States more dependent on foreign energy.
Many environmental activists counter that ending subsidies could move the United States toward a future free of fossil fuels — helping it curtail its emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Chances are, it wouldn’t do much of either.
In a new report for the Council on Foreign Relations a professor of economics at Tufts University, concluded that eliminating the three major federal subsidies for the production of oil and gas would have a very limited impact on the production and consumption of these fossil fuels.
The analysis is the most sophisticated yet on the impact of government supports, worth roughly $4 billion a year. Extrapolating from the observed reaction of energy companies to fluctuations in the price of oil and gas, the report models how a loss of subsidies might curtail drilling and thus affect production, prices and consumer demand.
Cutting oil drilling subsidies might reduce domestic oil production by 5 percent in the year 2030.
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park has partnered with the University of Tennessee to create a new web application that locates more than 1,800 plant and animal species according to their suitable habitats.
Everyone from park managers to school groups are expected to benefit from the new biodiversity web application.
The “Species Mapper” uses locations where species have been found to help predict additional places where they may occur in the park. The predictions are based on observations made during ongoing resource monitoring as well as during research studies conducted by scientists from all over the world.
The result of the model is a reliable distribution of where each species lives in the park.
“This application allows park managers to use the vast amount of biological data collected over the past three decades to protect park resources and assess the potential impact from disturbances like the hemlock woolly adelgid and emerald ash borer,” said Inventory and Monitoring Program Manager Tom Remaley. “Visitors can use this site to explore what lives in the park and what they might see during their visit.”
“The rapid adoption of LEDs in lighting marks one of the fastest technology shifts in human history,” Goldman Sachs stated in a new report.
The accelerated deployment of light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs is on track to save U.S. consumers and businesses $20 billion a year in electricity costs within a decade, which would lower U.S. CO2 emissions by some 100 million metric tons a year. The growing global effort to speed up LED adoption could ultimately cut global energy costs and carbon pollution 5 times as much.
As recently as 2009, this country didn’t have even 400,000 installations of common home LED bulbs, according to a November 2015 Department of Energy report. And yet by 2012, we had 14 million — and by 2014 we had whopping 78 million installations.
This revolution has been driven by “sharp cost reductions and performance improvements, relatively short replacement cycles for incumbent technologies, and aggressive policy support (including bans on incandescent technology in major markets such as the U.S., the E.U. and China).”
Since 2008 alone, prices for LED lightbulbs have dropped a remarkable 90 percent, and you can now buy a 60-watt-equivalent LED bulb for a little more than $3.
Conservation Trust for North Carolina is the host organization for AmeriCorps, a ten-month national service program in environmental education and outreach. The program is currently accepting applications for the 2017 service year, which will start on October 4, 2016 and end on July 21, 2017. AmeriCorps members will be stationed at host organizations around the state. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, with the last day to apply being August 26th 2016.
The program seeks to reconnect people with the outdoors and to develop future leaders in conservation. AmeriCorps members will develop service projects that help remove barriers to environmental education throughout North Carolina, as well as help expand the diversity of backgrounds among conservation leaders in the state.
CTNC offer a living stipend ($13,470 over ten months), health insurance reimbursement (up to $150 per month), childcare assistance, and monthly professional development opportunities (individual trainings, conferences, career fair). Participants who complete the program may receive an education award of $5,775.
To find out more and to apply, please click here…
North Carolina’s top public health official acted unethically and possibly illegally by telling residents living near Duke Energy coal ash pits that their well water is safe to drink when it’s contaminated with a chemical known to cause cancer, a state toxicologist said in sworn testimony.
The Associated Press obtained a full copy of the 220-page deposition given last month by toxicologist Ken Rudo as part of a lawsuit. The nation’s largest electricity company has asked a federal judge to seal the record, claiming its public disclosure would potentially prejudice jurors.
Rudo’s boss, state public health director Dr. Randall Williams, in March 2016 reversed earlier warnings that had told the affected residents not to drink their water. The water is contaminated with cancer-causing hexavalent chromium at levels many times higher than Rudo had determined is safe.
“The state health director’s job is to protect public health,” testified Rudo, who has been the state’s toxicologist for nearly 30 years. “And in this specific instance, the opposite occurred. He knowingly told people that their water was safe when we knew it wasn’t.”
As part of his deposition, Rudo said hexavalent chromium would cause an increased lifetime risk of causing tumors in those who drink it, especially for pregnant women, infants and children under age of 12.
There’s a popular refrain among National Park Service employees, one that doubles as a reminder, of sorts, after a long, wearisome day: “We get paid in sunrises and sunsets.”
For many park employees, the pay is seasonal and not great. The hours are long. The question is usually the same (“Where’s the bathroom?”). And no matter how many pamphlets you pass out, instructions you give or “Attention!” signs you put up, people still wander off trails, carve their names in trees and get too close to the bears.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most-visited park in the U.S. Tag along with the park’s employees and volunteers — releasing rescued bear cubs, welcoming delegations of foreign diplomats, hunting for invasive feral hogs and cleaning bathrooms — to try to get an idea of just how much work goes on behind-the-scenes in our national parks. (Spoiler alert: It’s a lot.)
But what strikes you the most are the reasons why — outside of the stunning sunrises and sunsets — people decide to work and dedicate their lives to a place like Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Here are some of their stories…
A much-anticipated Bureau of Land Management decision to move forward with plans to cancel 25 previously issued but never-developed oil and gas leases in the Thompson Divide region met with the usual praise from conservation groups and industry criticism.
The BLM formally released its final environmental impact statement for its review of 65 existing leases on the White River National Forest that were issued over the past 20 years.
The preferred alternative in the document lays a path to cancel the controversial Divide leases that cover a swath of land stretching from Sunlight Mountain Resort southwest of Glenwood Springs, Colorado to McClure Pass south of Carbondale, CO.
It’s a huge victory for the Carbondale-based Thompson Divide Coalition, which has been fighting for years to protect the higher-elevation eastern fringe of the natural gas-rich Piceance Basin from drilling.
The preferred alternative is consistent with the BLM’s earlier-stated intention to cancel the Thompson Divide leases. The final EIS will be open for a 30-day public comment period starting Aug. 5, 2016 and a final decision is expected this fall, the BLM said.
Industry groups have indicated that they will likely challenge any lease cancellations in court. Other groups said the BLM didn’t go far enough in extending protections to other parts of the forest.
After decades of protecting North Carolina’s natural resources as well as its economy, over the past six years the North Carolina General Assembly and executive branch have begun to systematically dismantle the longstanding, sensible policies that make North Carolina a great place to visit, live, and do business. Attacks on our environment include:
Since 2011, when the current majority took control of the North Carolina General Assembly, every legislative session has seen new laws and amendments to existing laws that have eroded and dismantled important protections for the state’s environment. North Carolina’s water, air, land, energy, and coastal policies have been assaulted by the state’s current leadership. The results have been catastrophic.
During these six legislative sessions, the legislature has targeted many other rights and needs that North Carolina citizens may have taken for granted, and people might have lost track of the damage wrought by six years of dismantling the state’s environmental protections. On the heels of the 2016 legislative short session, the Southern Environmental Law Center here provides an overview of six years’ worth of harm to the state’s environment and the programs that protect it.
Can the largest river restoration project in history serve as a template for other waterways across the country?
“A river is never silent…Reservoirs stilled my song.” Narrated from the point of view of Washington’s Elwha River, a new documentary about the largest dam removal project in U.S. history starts off on a somber tone before building toward the best possible catharsis: massive charges of dynamite demolishing a pair of meddlesome dams.
The 1,400-square-mile Olympic National Park is the fifth most-visited national park in the country, according to the National Parks Conservation Association, and the 45-mile-long Elwha is its heart. It is fed by runoff from Mount Olympus and, in turn, feeds thousands of acres of forestland and flows into the Pacific Ocean. But for more than 100 years the river’s flow was restricted by two dams initially installed, like so many others in the country, as generators of cheap power. Eventually, the dams were discovered to be a strain on the local environment and nearby communities outgrew the need for them. But removing the dams would not be an easy task. It took more than two decades and countless efforts by local community members and environmental groups to tear the dams down and return the river to its natural state.
Return of the River, currently screening around the Pacific Northwest, tells the story of the fight to restore the Elwha to its former glory, how the project might serve as an example for successful dam removal projects across the country—even ones mired in political discord—and how opening up the river created a myriad of new recreation opportunities.
The National Park Service invites visitors of all ages to join in the celebration of its 100th birthday throughout the month of August. With special events across the country, and free admission to all 412 national parks from August 25 through August 28, 2016, the NPS is encouraging everyone to #FindYourPark / #EncuentraTuParque for the centennial.
“August – our birthday month – will be a nationwide celebration of national parks, and we’re inviting everyone to the party,” said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. “We like to think that we look pretty good for 100, and with so many events and activities to commemorate this milestone, we hope all Americans will join us to celebrate the breathtaking landscapes and inspiring history in our nation’s parks and public lands. Whether it is in a distant state or in your own community, there are hundreds of ways and places to find your park!”
On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the act that created the National Park Service “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for future generations.”
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of that moment and to look ahead to the next 100 years, in early 2015 the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation launched the Find Your Park / Encuentra Tu Parque movement. Inspiring people from all backgrounds to celebrate and support America’s national parks and community-based programs, #FindYourPark / #EncuentraTuParque invites people to discover and share their own unique connections to our nation’s natural landscapes, vibrant culture, and rich history.
Oregon is no stranger to National Parks. Since 1902, the state has been home to Crater Lake National Park, and over the last century four other spots have won lesser designations from the National Park Service.
But in the mid-20th century, Oregon’s scenic beauty was prized by the park service, which proposed several sprawling national parks around the state.
Three stunning spots in scenic Oregon were front-runners to land the national park status, a designation that was so divisive at the time that it was known in the northwest as the “park problem.”
So it comes as little surprise, perhaps, that the three proposed parks in Oregon never came to be. That left the state then as it is today – with one major national park at Crater Lake, but scenic beauty abundant under other designations.
Here’s a look at what could have been, for better or for worse, three major national parks in Oregon.
In the deep stillness of a forest in winter, the sound of footsteps on a carpet of leaves died away. Peter Wohlleben had found what he was looking for: a pair of towering beeches. “These trees are friends,” he said, craning his neck to look at the leafless crowns, black against a gray sky. “You see how the thick branches point away from each other? That’s so they don’t block their buddy’s light.”
Before moving on to an elderly beech to show how trees, like people, wrinkle as they age, he added, “Sometimes, pairs like this are so interconnected at the roots that when one tree dies, the other one dies, too.”
Mr. Wohlleben, 51, is a very tall career forest ranger who, with his ramrod posture and muted green uniform, looks a little like one of the sturdy beeches in the woods he cares for. Yet he is lately something of a sensation as a writer in Germany, a place where the forest has long played an outsize role in the cultural consciousness, in places like fairy tales, 20th-century philosophy, and the birth of the modern environmental movement.
Presenting scientific research and his own observations in highly anthropomorphic terms, the matter-of-fact Mr. Wohlleben has delighted readers and talk-show audiences alike with the news — long known to biologists — that trees in the forest are social beings. They can count, learn and remember; nurse sick neighbors; warn each other of danger by sending electrical signals across a fungal network known as the “Wood Wide Web”; and, for reasons unknown, keep the ancient stumps of long-felled companions alive for centuries by feeding them a sugar solution through their roots.
The Cradle of Forestry invites the public to enjoy a Saturday, July 30, 2016 program about western North Carolina’s logging train history and the 1915 Climax logging locomotive on display at the Cradle. Visitors will learn about the locomotive and explore the rich history of a time when many livelihoods depended on logging trains winding their way through the area’s forest coves.
Western North Carolina train historian Jerry Ledford will present a slide program at 10:30 a.m. and again at 2:00 p.m. The program features old photographs of the real people and places that are part of local logging history. After each program Ledford will lead the group on the wheelchair accessible Forest Festival Trail to see the Cradle’s old Climax locomotive and discuss its history and mechanics.
The Asheville Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society members will display a hands-on railroad yard and HO scale switching layout. Learn how to move railroad cars within the yard, how to switch tracks, and set up an entire train from engine to caboose. Enjoy seeing pictures from Southern Railway in the 1950’s, old railroad lanterns, and other railroad memorabilia.
Admission to the Cradle of Forestry is $5.00 for adults and free for youth under 16 years of age. America the Beautiful, Golden Age and Every Kid in a Park passes are honored. Admission includes the new film, First in Forestry: Carl Alwin Schenck and the Biltmore Forest School, the Forest Discovery Center with 15 hands-on exhibits, scavenger hunts, the Adventure Zone, and historic cabins and antique equipment on two paved interpretive trails.
The Cradle of Forestry is located on Hwy. 276 in the Pisgah National Forest, six miles north of Looking Glass Falls and four miles south of the Blue Ridge Parkway at milepost 412. For more information call 828-877-3130 or go to www.cradleofforestry.com.
This month, the full Democratic Platform Committee approved the strongest statement about the urgent need for climate action ever issued by a major party in this country.
The platform makes for the starkest possible contrast with a party that just nominated Donald Trump — a man who has called climate change a hoax invented by and for the Chinese, who has denied basic reality such as the drought in California, and who has vowed to (try to) scuttle the unanimous agreement by the world’s nations in Paris to take whatever measures are necessary to avert catastrophic warming and keep total warming “well below 2°C.”
In contrast, one party in this country has finally embraced the blunt — and scientifically accurate — language of climate hawks as to what those measures actually entail… The Democrats:
We believe the United States must lead in forging a robust global solution to the climate crisis. We are committed to a national mobilization, and to leading a global effort to mobilize nations to address this threat on a scale not seen since World War II. In the first 100 days of the next administration, the President will convene a summit of the world’s best engineers, climate scientists, policy experts, activists, and indigenous communities to chart a course to solve the climate crisis.
The final draft of the platform also calls for a price on CO2 and other greenhouse gases: “Democrats believe that carbon dioxide, methane, and other greenhouse gases should be priced to reflect their negative externalities, and to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy and help meet our climate goals.”
I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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