photo by Bill Hughes

Lake Mead is in trouble. Plunging water levels. Soaring heat. Air pollution … to say nothing of the intoxicated rednecks in their personal watercraft.

We can’t do much about the rednecks. Or the funkiness of the water. But the rest? If the world can get a handle on carbon emissions, we might be able to nurse Lake Mead back to some semblance of health.

That’s the conclusion reached by the authors of a new report, “National Parks in Peril,” which idenitfied the 25 parks most endangered by climate change. Lake Mead National Recreation Area, which is administered by the Parks Service, made the list. So did Zion National Park and Joshua Tree National Park.

“Global warming is impacting our parks now,” said Theo Spencer, senior advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Nowhere is that more obvious than at Lake Mead, with its bathtub ring and abandoned boat launches. The shrinking lake is already shedding visitors, at a rate of about 13 percent a year. The Parks Service spent $20 million to extend boat ramps, and may have to spend more to move other facilities closer to the retreating shoreline.

Climate change is also driving up high temperatures, which — in our neck of Southern Nevada — are already astronomical. Lake Mead may very well become too hot to tolerate.

Coastal parks and national seashores in other parts of the country are in danger of being wiped out altogether, according to the report. The Everglades, Ellis Island and Dry Tortugas could be consumed by rising oceans. Glacier and Saguaro National Parks might lose the very features that give the monuments their names.

“We’ve never lost a national park before. We could lose entire national parks for the first time,” said Stephen Saunders, president of the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization.

The national parks are currently enjoying an unprecedented amount of national attention, thanks to Ken Burns and the folks at PBS. It’s a good thing, too, because DVDs and public television are going to survive the climate crisis. And they’re going cost less than a scuba suit — which may become the only way to see some of the parks in person.