Seventy-seven percent of U.S. national parks are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, according to a recent study funded by the National Park Service. The analysis evaluated 259 park units across the contiguous United States, and found that two-thirds of these parks are already highly exposed to at least one potentially transformational threat caused by climate change, including wildfire, drought, invasive pests, and sea-level rise.
While the Midwest and East face the highest cumulative vulnerability due to fragmented habitats and development, the West is being hit by a “trifecta” of threats. Thirteen Western parks scored high for simultaneous risks from fire, drought, and pests.
The findings suggest that the mission of the National Park Service to preserve these landscapes unimpaired for future generations is facing an existential crisis, and the agency may need to pivot from preserving historical conditions to managing ecological transformations. “Although the precise consequences of the changes parks will experience remain difficult to predict, it is clear that the goal of conserving parks as a ‘vignette of primitive America’ is incompatible with the trajectories of change that are underway,” said the authors of the study.
Quick hits
Trump administration to pay $1 billion to energy giant to cancel offshore wind farms
New York Times | Associated Press | The Hill | Politico | NPR | Canary Media
Visits to national parks dipped slightly in 2025 — after a record-breaking year
Fox News host presses Burgum over gas prices
Trump’s EPA is paving the way for haze to return to national parks, conservationists warn
Roadless areas provide 10 times better elk hunting and support the best trout streams in the West
Protesters march against oil industry leaders at Houston’s CERAWeek energy conference
Houston Chronicle | Houston Public Media
As the BLM in Moab opens hundreds of miles of trails to e-bikes, Colorado land managers also weigh expansion
A new video game simulates park ranger life — and its unglamorous reality
Quote of the day
To try to resurrect coal is like digging up a grave, and this administration wants to dig up that grave. It’s nonsensical and, I think, lawless.”
—Jim Schaberl, former air and water quality manager at Shenandoah National Park, Associated Press
Picture This
Petrified Forest National Park, in northeastern Arizona, is known for, and named in honor of, its extensive deposits of petrified wood. In fact, the park contains one of the world’s largest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood.
So what is petrified wood, and why was it so frightened that it’s now unable to move? Most likely, millions of years ago, a dinosaur, uninvited, approached a gathering of trees. At first they were afraid. Then they were petrified. All their rings turned to stone inside. But they survived. Yes, they survived.
We were told that’s not 100% accurate, so we will try take two.
When the trees died, they washed into an ancient river system and formed log jams and buried sediment. Minerals, including silica dissolved from volcanic ash, absorbed into the porous wood over hundreds and thousands of years and crystallized within the cellular structure, replacing the organic material as it broke down over time. If there were larger spaces such as a hollow or crack in the logs, crystals of clear quartz, purple amethyst, yellow citrine, and smoky quartz formed. The brilliant colors in the petrified wood you see today come mainly from trace minerals. Pure quartz is white, manganese oxides form blue, purple, black, and brown, and iron oxides provide hues from yellow through red to brown and black.
Featured photo: Joshua Tree National Park, Christopher Michel/Wikimedia Commons