Requiem for America's Best Idea

In Requiem for America’s Best Idea, Michael J. Yochim explains how climate change is altering the face of America’s national parks, focusing on current and projected changes to vegetation, wildlife, and the natural conditions in Olympic, Grand Canyon, Glacier, Yellowstone, and Yosemite National Parks—five of the “crown jewels” of our national park system. As Yochim guides the reader from park to park, he immerses us in each park’s beauty and wonder, highlighting the resources now at risk of destruction or permanent alteration.

Yochim worked for the National Park Service for nearly thirty years before being diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). It was while fighting the disease that he wrote this last moving testament. Interwoven with descriptions of climate change’s effects on our national parks is the heartbreaking story of how the author, a legendary hiker and backpacker, lost control of his body to the point where he was finally forced to rely on an eye-tracking machine to write.

Climate change is indisputably happening around us, and our parks are changing, often irrevocably. If we don’t act now, Yochim argues, future changes will be much more severe, threatening the very essence of these irreplaceable wonders. America’s failure to meaningfully address the current climate crisis may well squander the vision that acclaimed western writer Wallace Stegner so memorably celebrated: “National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best, rather than our worst.”