President Barack Obama warned Saturday that man-made global warming, left unchecked, could wallow out and decimate many of the U.S.’ largest national parks, and could even lead to the reduction of giant glaciers in Yosemite National Park.
“Here in Yosemite, meadows are drying up, bird ranges are shifting farther northward, mammals are being forced further upslope,” Obama said during a visit to Yosemite Saturday. “Yosemite’s famous glacier, once a mile wide, is almost gone. We are also facing longer, more expensive wildfire seasons.”
Obama made his comments about the park’s receding glaciers despite evidence to the contrary.
Jeffrey Schaffer, a professor in the geological department at Napa Valley College, suggested in his book “Yosemite National Park: A Natural History Guide to Yosemite and Its Trails“ that the role of glaciers and has been inflated throughout the years. In fact, Yosemite Valley above 5,600 feet hasn’t changed much in the past 30 million years, Schaffer added.
Obama noted that hotter temperatures “could mean no more glaciers in Glacier national park, no more Joshua trees in Joshua Tree national park.”
The president referenced a May report by the United Nations Educational Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) suggesting historical landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island’s low-lying edifices, among others, could soon be under water thanks to rising sea levels brought on by man-made global warming.
“Rising seas can destroy vital ecosystems in the Everglades and at some point could even threaten icons like the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. That’s not the America I want to pass on to the next generation,” Obama told the press before taking a hike through Yosemite’s underbrush.
Obama said: “We can’t treat it like it’s someone else’s problem, it shouldn’t lead to careless suggestions that we don’t get serious about carbon emissions or that we scrap an international treaty that we spent years putting together to deal with this.”
“This park belongs to all of us, this planet belongs to all of us. It’s the only one we’ve got. We can’t pay lip service to that notion and then oppose the things required to protect it. We’ve got to do a lot more. There is such a thing as being too late.”
The president spent the bulk of his two terms fighting with Republicans, among other global warming skeptics in Congress and in the media, many of whom argue his policies addressing global warming will hurt the economy.
One of the primary bugbears for Republicans and conservatives is the price associated with Obama’s overarching regulations and policies fighting greenhouse gas emissions.
A study by the Manhattan Institute estimates that Obama’s global warming plan would increase the costs of living for the poor by an additional $19 billion per year, which is akin to increasing their taxes by 166 percent. The increase would also raise taxes on other poor families by an extra $25 billion, equal to a 33 percent tax increase.
Meanwhile, according to the study, the living costs for the richest Americans would only increase by four percent.
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