America's Best Idea: CPR for a dying issue

The recent debut of the new series by Ken Burns entitled The National Parks: America's Best Idea will no doubt help shed light on an issue that was slowly being pushed under the rug.
With bigger issues taking the national stage such as the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economy taking a roller coaster ride over the last several months, and other issues that arise from day to day, it is easy to see how people would lose site of our National Parks, and the fact they are in danger.
Yet, the series mentioned above brings to light that there has always been a struggle to keep the parks, well, natural; and to keep the historic sites and monuments from being consumed by residential and industrial expansion.
As new generations take offices of leadership and influence, it is their job to ensure we keep what people such as John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, Stephen Mather, and many more helped make a reality. That reality is having places where we Americans can go and be reacquainted with how beautiful our country is and remember the many sacrifices it has taken to get us to this point.

Why this topic?

There are many topics on which I could have chosen to blog about, and probably ones that would draw many more readers than this one ever will. I believe however, that this topic is largely ignored by the American population as a whole. If this continues, popular places such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite will slowly fade away and be consumed by multi-billion dollar business corporations such as Wal-Mart; or by huge restaurant franchises such as McDonalds, Dairy Queen, Burger King and so on. As this happens, the one thing Americans have that many other countries do not; and that is the beauty of the natural world will slowly die and resulting in the loss of not only many species of wildlife, but a source of peace, individuality, and inspiration.