For more than a century, Yosemite National Park was viewed as a refuge where nature prevails unmolested by man-made forces amid picturesque vistas of granite cliffs, waterfalls and giant sequoias. But this year is different. The park has now become the latest cauldron in controversial federal forest thinning operations unfolding on public lands across the West in response to climate change, drought and the risk of catastrophic wildfires. A U.S. District Court judge on Tuesday was expected to hear a request by the nonprofit Earth Island Institute for a preliminary injunction to halt the National Park Service’s ongoing “biomass removal project” across nearly 2,000 acres within the park. In a lawsuit that was filed a day earlier, environmentalists argued that the work violates federal environmental requirements. The project authorizes crews to remove thousands of standing dead trees and healthy trees to reduce the fire risk to … groves of giant sequoias…