Our prized National Parks under threat from climate change - The Yorkshire Post says

Houses in South Yorkshire are among those pictured as little more than charred remains following unprecedented levels of heat.

Elsewhere in Yorkshire, our celebrated landscapes are also under threat from catastrophic weather events – just ask Bernie McLinden, senior ranger for the coastal region of the North York Moors.

He writes in The Yorkshire Post today of how the environmental breakdown is putting wildlife and plants in the National Park at greater risk from serious fires. This potentially means rangers will spend “several months of each year in this heightened state of anxiety for the North York Moors,” he says.

Rangers already have their hands full caring for the beautiful parks available to us in Yorkshire without having to mitigate the effects of wildfire – often started by people but essentially fuelled by hot and dry conditions.

The Environment Agency, too, is having to take action by seeking a drought order to prevent the Holme Styes reservoir in Holmfirth from running dry.

If the sight of ice caps melting or forests being felled in faraway lands do not concern climate change naysayers, perhaps they will begin to take it seriously when their own region’s prized landscapes begin to perish.

One thing we can all do is take to heart the guidance of rangers who stress that careless actions – throwing cigarette butts, lighting barbecues in park areas – can cause mass destruction.