Photographic Tribute to Our National Parks

This is a tribute to our amazing national parks and to Ken Burns whose PBS series this week reminds us of the need to be eternally vigilant against their destruction by mining, drilling, hunting and honky-tonk development. Climate change is now attacking the parks as well, melting glaciers, drying up rivers, sparking massive wildfires and messing with wildlife, trees and ecosystems. As one who has visited many of the national parks and finds them every bit as compelling as the much vaunted Alps or New Zealand landscape, I have selected some pictures from Flickr to reproduce the beauty I witnessed:


Grand Tetons National Park photo by Alaskan Dude/Fred Kovalchek


Arches National Park photo by Vtveen


Yellowstone National Park photo by Alaskan Dude/Fred Kovalchek


Glacier National Park photo by Spunkinator/Danny


Grand Canyon National Park photo by Cobalt123


Everglades National Park photo by Bill Swindaman


Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska, photo by Wugging Gavagal


Bryce Canyon National Park photo by by Vtveen


Yosemite National Park photo by Jim Brekke


Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii, photo by RaSchi/Ragnar Schierholz

Burns' series continues tonight (Monday) on PBS.

Photo Gallery: Things that won't be there anymore -- if we don't act quickly on global warming

Weekly angst: My husband has a video, "Things That Aren't There Anymore," about places he remembers from his youth in Pittsburgh -- like an ice cream shop, an amusement park and a shopping arcade. The grandkids -- Bryan, Evan and Sabrina -- laugh at the title and the concept. But they won't be laughing if they end up showing their own grandkids video of all the natural things from their youth that won't be there anymore, thanks to global warming and our unwillingness to stop it. Here are some of the things they may find only in captivity at a zoo, dead and stuffed in a museum or on a video -- if we don't get serious about greenhouse gases.


Snows of Kilimanjaro
(Photo from Flickr and photographer Tambako The Jaguar.)


King penguins
(Photo from Flickr and photographer nao-cha.)



Miniature Key deer in Florida Keys
(Photo from Flickr and photographer key lime pie/anna wiz.)


Glaciers at Glacier National Park
(Photo from Flickr and photographer rbeforee.)


Staghorn coral
(Photo from Flickr and photographer Stuart Hamilton.)


Australian Koala bears
(Photo from Flickr and photographer Dabe Murphy.)


Polar bears
(Photo from Flickr and photographer davipt/Bruno Rodrigues


Rare narwhal whales in the Arctic
(Photo from Flickr and photographer Chris Corwin.)


Maldive Islands, just 3 feet above sea level
(Photo from Flickr and photographer Merlin_1/Simon.)


Summer Arctic sea ice
(Photo from Flickr and photographer Tunde Pecsvari.)


Harp seals
(Photo from Flickr and photographer yeimaya/Gale.)


Walruses
(Photo from Flickr and YukonWhiteLight/Amanda Graham.)