Obama’s family trip intended to put focus on national parks

He might also highlight the threat climate change poses to the US park system and remark programs created to attract more people to visit the natural sites. Rangers at Yosemite had relayed a list of impacts that a changing climate was already having, from drying meadows to disappearing habitats for the pika, a small, round mammal. That is the second-most by any administration.

On Friday afternoon, the Obamas visited Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and for the rest of the weekend they are in Yosemite. The two didn’t exchange words, but Fabian said the experience was nonetheless exciting “because I’d never met him before – only on TV”.

“We like taking our kids fishing and hunting”, she said.

“This park belongs to all of us, this planet belongs to all of us. Because the beauty of the national park system is it belongs to everybody”.

Since Obama took office, 22 sites have been included in the national parks system under the Antiquities Act, according to information from the U.S. Department of the Interior.

“It turns out that studies show that every dollar we invest in our national parks generates $10”, he said. “It’s a park that captures the wonder of the world that changes you by being here”.

In conservation efforts like Obama’s, “what is at stake defines the politics, but more importantly transcends politics”, conservationist Carl Safina wrote for The Huffington Post earlier this year: “land as a commodity versus land as, well, sacred”.

Before the speech, the president and first lady gathered with schoolchildren from Livingston and San Francisco.

At one point, he and first lady Michelle stopped to chat with some kids at a park facility under bright, sunny skies and Mrs Obama asked them what they would do to scare away bears. Traffic will be backed up, and some areas in the Yosemite Valley will be closed. “And we think those are important and the more we highlight them, the more the public will appreciate the full story of America”.

At Grand Canyon National Park, where more than $370 million in maintenance is overdue, an aging system of freshwater pipelines threatens drinking water supplies.

“You could tell he had an emotional connection to Yosemite, even though this was his first time here”, Neubacher said. He was very genuine.

Obama didn’t speak directly on the threat of dying trees in California – some 29 million and counting – but noted wildfire seasons are becoming longer, more expensive, and more unsafe throughout the Western United States. “And the biggest challenge we’re going to face in protecting this place is climate change. I would say he’s more popular than our president”.

Anyone heading into the mountains sees scores of dead, red pine trees standing out in stark relief to the still-alive green trees that remain. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article. That comment about climate change got ultra conservative Republican Congressman Tom McClintock, who’s district covers Yosemite and most the sierra range, a little concerned.