Cost Benefit Analysis

Quick review. Here's a summary of the benefits and consequences of visiting a National Park.

Benefits	Consequences
- Reduces possible development efforts	- Carbon Dioxide Emissions and pollution problems created in the park
- Aestheticism and park happiness creates place attachment to nature and promotes environmental behavior	- Promotes a false sense of security within the park because of its protected status and leads to wildlife and shoreline degradation
- People are environmentally educated at these parks and these education methods are more effective than the methods that would be utilized in the classroom	- Promotes unsustainable behavior outside park boundaries as they are not seen as ecologically worthy of protection

So, then how can we compare these together and make a conclusion about whether or not we should support these parks by visiting them? How can we weigh them against each other and establish which plays a bigger role when we cannot quantitatively compare the environmental benefits and consequences of National Parks?

Well, let's try and consolidate these benefits and consequences so that it becomes easier to compare.

To begin, I do not think that carbon dioxide emissions or pollution play a big role in establishing the environmental ethics behind National Parks. Not because its effects are not damaging. Sure, all the carbon dioxide emitted from our visits to these parks can be mitigated by the Redwood trees but that's not the reason why. It's because these are actions that our fostered by our attitudes about National Parks. If National Parks are able to stimulate pro-environmental behavior rather than negative ones, then our negative environmental impacts are likely to be reduced in the parks and in our daily lives as well. For instance, our changed environmental attitudes can be the motivation we need to be encouraged to buy carbon offsets to mitigate the carbon dioxide we emitted throughout our travels to the National Parks. Thus, we ought to focus on the behaviors and attitudes National Parks foster to determine the environmental sustainability of these parks.

Maybe I'm biased because I love National Parks so much, but I think that the benefits outweigh the impacts. Here's why. At the beginning of this project, I wasn't so sure about it, but while researching, looking at my summer photos, and talking to friends about National Parks, my fondness for them has grown even more. Just by looking at the photos I've posted on this blog, I've grown re-attached to the places I visited. Sometimes, I forget about just how beautiful these places are but when I am reminded of them, I'm also reminded of why I want to study environmental conservation.

Personal reasons aside, solution to combat the negative environmental consequences exist. With proper efforts through the NPS and the Ranger Program, we can get rid of our false sense of environmental security within the parks and get rid of unsustainable behavior around park boundaries. Carolyn Joy Littlefair from Griffith University found that

Interpretation can be an effective management tool in reducing visitor impacts. Interpretation [was] most effective in reducing impacts when those impacts [were] specifically addressed through verbal appeals, combined with positive role modeling of appropriate behaviors.

Moreover, because of the place attachment that people feel from their park experience, they tend to support conservation policies within the park. Studies from the Arches National Park and the Great Smoky Mountain National Park showed that visitors want to reduce their environmental impacts in the park and have shown enthusiastic support for a mass transit system in the parks to reduce congestion.

Thus, we can gain all the benefits of the NPS without a lot of the harms. Additionally, if we are to consider the amount of people who feel this perceived security and negatively impact the environment, it is smaller than those who feel place attachment. I speculate this insofar as happiness within the National Parks were at 97%. Since human experience tells us that we become attached to places where we had a great time and felt happy, then the 97% are most likely going to feel place attachment. However, since not everyone feels this perceived security, I feel as though more people become place attached than those who feel the parks are inherently protected and degrade them ignorantly.

And to further emphasize the benefits of visiting a National Park, the benefits we gain positively impacts environmental sustainability issues insofar as they encompass a greater scope. The pro-environmental behaviors these parks foster and the environmental knowledge we gain are carried into our everyday lives where we decide on conservation policy legislations and allow us the opportunity to share these behaviors and knowledge with others in society. On the other hand, the detrimental environmental ideals that National Parks foster are localized to the regions where the National Parks lie. Because, while environmental degradation does occur around the park through ignorance of pollution effects, on a wider scope, it was found that, nationally, we do understand the importance of the surrounding areas in the health of the parks and therefore prevent massive industrialization initiatives from taking place.

So, what is my overall conclusion about National Park visits? I'm going to have to give it a YAY approval.