President Trump on Tuesday announced plans to scrap President Obama's Climate Action Plan, a move that conservationists fear will have far-reaching impacts to the country, including national parks such as Glacier/NPS photo of Upper Grinnell Lake in Glacier National Park (Tim Rains)

President Trump's executive order Tuesday calling for a ramp-up in coal production from federal lands and a scrapping of President Obama's Climate Action Plan was quickly criticized by conservation and environmental organizations. Unclear, however, was how the move might directly impact national parks and the National Park Service's climate change initiatives.

“We can’t power the country on pixie dust and hope. Today, President Trump took bold and decisive action to end the War on Coal and put us on track for American energy independence,” Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a release. “American energy independence has three major benefits to the environment, economy, and national security."

In announcing the president's energy plan, the White House also said that he is "committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule."

President Obama's Climate Action Plan aimed to reduce the nation's carbon emissions through a variety of initiatives, including a focus on renewable energy, and preparing the country for the impacts of climate change, such as by having federal agencies promote climate-resilient projects. The National Park Service in 2012 adapted its own Climate Action Plan, which called for guidelines that "direct and support implementation of climate change science, adaptation, mitigation, and communication actions."

Impacts of a warming climate are visible across the National Park System, from shrinking and disappearing glaciers at Glacier National Park to thawing permafrost in national parks in Alaska. Spring weather is arriving earlier in some national parks, altering phenology along the way. Wildfire season in the West, which lasted about five months in the 1970s, now runs about seven months, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"Trump’s executive order repeals a number of previous executive orders designed to help prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change, including floods, rising seas, prolonged heat waves and wildfires," said Mark Wenzler, senior vice president of conservation programs for the National Parks Conservation Association. "If America is unprepared, the consequences will be even more devastating to our national parks, economy and communities. Iconic parks like Everglades National Park and Cape Hatteras National Seashore are particularly susceptible to rising seas and increasingly violent storms — just some of the effects of climate change already taking place in our parks.

"... Trump’s executive action dramatically halts American progress to combat climate change in ways that can wreak havoc on our people and harm our national parks for generations to come. This reckless action ignores public opinion, science and the needs of communities, and may ultimately leave our children and grandchildren with a more volatile and dangerous future."

Interior Department staff did not respond to an email inquiry into how the president's directive would impact the department's approach to climate change, or the National Park Service's climate-change outreach, work on adaptation, and preparations of coastal park units for sea-level rise and more potent hurricanes. Park Service staff in Washington, D.C., did not immediately know.

At Defenders of Wildlife, President and CEO Jamie Rappaport Clark lamented the president's directive.

“This executive order only serves polluters who would prefer to operate without regard for our natural heritage or future generations. It does not serve the clear majority of American people who want our children to inherit a healthy planet," she said. "It does not serve thousands of communities that depend on rivers and streams for clean, safe drinking water. And it absolutely does not serve our nation’s wildlife, which must fight for survival against habitat damage and pollution in a rapidly changing climate.

“Under the Obama administration, we made strides to reduce emissions and create strategies to prepare for and reduce the impacts of climate change. But with this latest executive order, President Trump could turn back the clock on almost all of that – all but guaranteeing that we will face more climate disasters and be less able to cope with them."

Staff for U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, the ranking member on the House Natural Resources Committee, issued a statement that the executive order would roll back "current rules mandating that federal agencies plan for the realities of how climate change will impact their mission and mitigate impacts wherever possible."

“The American people want action on climate change, but the president claims it’s a Chinese hoax and his budget director has announced that responding to climate change is a waste of money,” the Arizona Democrat said. “Restarting sales of subsidized federal coal won’t change the fact that natural gas is cheaper and cleaner. Failing to act on climate change, or plan for its inevitable impacts, is going to cost our grandchildren hundreds of billions of dollars, if not far more, down the road. Much of what the Trump administration has said about health care, or Russia, or wiretapping is just not true, and their talking points about our climate are just as misleading and even more irresponsible. We are going to learn the hard way that trashing the environment, kicking scientists out of the building and hanging a ‘For Sale’ sign on every public resource in sight will hurt the economy and the planet.”

Secretary Zinke, who planned a conference call with reporters on Wednesday to discuss the energy plan, said in a statement that the president's approach to energy would be better for the environment.

"Thanks to advancements in drilling and mining technology, we can responsibly develop our energy resources and return the land to equal or better quality than it was before. I’ve spent a lot of time in the Middle East, and I can tell you with 100 percent certainty it is better to develop our energy here under reasonable regulations and export it to our allies, rather than have it produced overseas under little or no regulations," he said.