In an understandable effort to get all land-management agencies on the same page when it comes to climate change, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday signed off on a strategy to develop some coordination in how climate change might already be affecting, or could in the future, the country's land, water, ocean, fish, wildlife, and cultural resources.

What role should the National Park Service play in promoting businesses that make a living off national parks? That's a potentially thorny question. On one hand, visitors coming from far off might want such information to help plan their trips. On the other, is the Park Service giving away free advertising and adding an appropriate commercial bent to its websites and press releases?

Nearly 140 years after Yellowstone became the world's first national park, we still don't know enough about it to properly manage all its natural resources. But then, as a dynamic, multi-faceted ecosystem, one affected by many internal and external drivers, is that surprising? Perhaps it should be.

The last time I visited Badlands National Park was back in 1963. I remember a twisty labyrinth of narrow canyons, spires, and geologic formations reminiscent of Bryce or Cedar Breaks, soft crumbly sedimentary rock that in many places erodes too quickly for plants to put down roots. Vistas that stretched from the high plateau along the north of the park out to the southern plains. Sagebrush, prairie dogs, and antelope