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The Greening of Our National Parks: How Electric Vehicles Can Reduce Emissions in U.S. National Parks and on Our Public Lands

The Greening of Our National Parks: How Electric Vehicles Can Reduce Emissions in U.S. National Parks and on Our Public Lands

Full Title: The Greening of Our National Parks: How Electric Vehicles Can Reduce Emissions in U.S. National Parks and on Our Public Lands
Author(s): Myriam Alexander-Kearns and Nidhi Thakar
Publisher(s): Center for American Progress
Publication Date: October 1, 2015
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):

For more than 100 years, national parks have provided a haven for Americans seeking to escape congested cities burdened with noise and air pollution. Names such as Yellowstone, Redwood National Park, the Badlands, and Arches National Park evoke images of towering mountains, wildflowers, free-flowing rivers, and lush tree canopies. However, these treasured areas are becoming polluted from passenger vehicle emissions—which account for 40 percent of emissions that originate in national parks—as well as from ozone and smog from other sources, including coal-fired plants situated upwind from national parks.2 The Obama administration’s efforts to reduce these forms of pollution—such as the Clean Power Plan,3 announced in August—will go a long way toward ensuring that the air we breathe in our national parks is clean. But as visitors to these pristine places, many of us still want to do our part to reduce our carbon footprint

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