GAO Slams Bush Interior Department For Lack Of Climate Guidelines For Parks, Managers - SF Gate

[hatrack]

No! Say it isn't so!

:silly:

Earlier snowmelts, longer summer droughts and bigger Western wildfires on federal lands are being caused more by "climatic conditions than land management techniques," government investigators conclude. They fault the Bush administration for not providing managers of national parks, wildlife preserves and marine sanctuaries with better guidance on how to address the effects of global warming.

A report Thursday by the Government Accountability Office found the Interior Department has "not made climate change a high priority," despite a 2001 order to include climate change in land management planning. That order more than six years ago was issued by then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt on the last full day of the Clinton administration. "Without such guidance, their ability to address climate change and effectively manage resources is constrained," the report says.

Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz., requested the GAO's 184-page report on March 8, 2004, when both were running for the presidential nomination in their respective parties. GAO investigators also found:


_Since 1850, the glaciers in Glacier National Park have declined from 150 to 26, and both summer and winter temperatures are increasing in the park. Some projections say the park's glaciers will be gone within 25 to 30 years.


_As much as 1.4 million acres of forests in Alaska, in the Chugach and the Kenai Peninsula, are dying off at higher rates than usual because of an infestation of spruce bark beetles attributed to climate-related insect outbreaks.

EDIT

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/06/national/w080528D99.DTL&type=politics

[kestrel91316]

1. I'm sure Bush figures that once the glaciers are gone from Glacier NP,

we can just sell it off as surplus government land (since "no one will want to vacation there") to his rich friends for their 5th homes.

[Kolesar]

2. "guidance on how to address the effects of global warming" What does that mean?

Spray the runaway bark beetles and raise the docks at Acadia NP (on the Atlantic Ocean)?
Make the NPS.gov website so snazzy that you don't even have to go there to enjoy it?
Shame the visitors for wasting fuel to get to the remote mountain parks?
Build a train station so that you can take the train to Mammoth at Yellowstone NP again?
Install CFLs and other energy efficiency methods?

[razzleberry]

3. the US Forest Service needs to get into the carbon-offset scam. nt