Climate Change: The Institute’s Point of View

President Obama recently articulated his point of view on climate change in a policy speech at George Washington University. For many people who work on climate change on a daily basis, including the Institute at the Golden Gate, it was a long-awaited and welcome boost. It also got us thinking about our own point of view on climate change as it relates to our core constituency of parks and other protected areas.

According to a recent survey conducted by Yale University’s Project on Climate Change Communications, 70% of Americans believe that climate change should be a priority for Congress and the President. This represents an opening for parks in the national climate change dialogue. There is a desire for action and parks are well-positioned, trusted sources of information that can help the American public understand and feel the scope of the issue and what action is needed by our elected officials, our institutions, and each other.

In our recent report, Climate in the Parks: Innovative Climate Change Education in Parks, we state that “The onset of climate change has become one of the greatest challenges facing parks and protected areas in the 21st century [and] embedded in this challenge there is also opportunity, as parks offer visual, historic, and tangible examples of the impacts of climate change.” The Institute’s point of view aligns with President Obama’s—that climate change is a defining issue for our time, that the science is evolving in depth, but settled in assessment, and that responding is not a political priority, it is a moral obligation.

We also believe that parks are a vital natural and community resource in our collective national response to climate change and that President Obama should reach out to the broad parks community and engage our active participation in helping to educate all of us on the challenges and opportunities of a changing climate. We’re in this together.