Climate Change: Already Here at a Park Near You

28 Jun Climate Change: Already Here at a Park Near You

Although a significant number of Americans still consider climate change a problem for the future, the impacts of changing climate are already altering the course of our National Parks. 

From wildlife loss to devastating fires, climate impacts have necessitated the National Park Service adopt a flexible planning model that accepts that absolute conservation is no longer a realistic hard line. A recent article from the New York Times sums up the bleak reality: “[C]limate change is teaching them to abandon the concept of ‘forever.’”

As I wrote in my last post, the UERLA / 4C partnership aims to tell some of our parks’ climate stories in the National Capital Region (NCR). It’s important that people know what’s happening right now in order to help mitigate the worst of the loss. 

This week in our project, our group decided on our core message, aptly: Your Parks Have Climate Stories. The upcoming project page on the UERLA site will encompass the different areas of climate impact with examples from the D.C. region. Here is a draft sitemap for your viewing pleasure (I know it’s not that exciting — but it will be!).

On a related note, I finally gained access to the NPS servers from my remote home office! My internship sent me the laptop from D.C. so it was quite a collaborative effort setting it up here in Northern Colorado. The featured image is of me at Kremmling, Colorado, the only place I could get an ID card appointment before July. 

My tips for future remote interns of the federal government:

1. Apply for your PIV card early! The process when I did it was this: Sign up for a fingerprint enrollment appointment, do your eQIP, go to the enrollment appointment, immediately sign up for a card activation appointment at the same place but in three weeks, wait 18 days for them to email you that your card is ready for pick up. 
2. Communicate with your eQIP and PIV card sponsors. Specifically, make sure your PIV card supervisor knows where to send the card! It should be sent to the same place you enrolled at but definitely check and let them know if it’s not. 
3. You have to physically connect to a DOI office network before you can use your federal computer outside of the office. So have your supervisor connect you with someone in your area. 

I think just being a remote intern this summer made my experience a little weird and uncharted so I hope this helps someone else in the future!