Sickness Week: Glacier National Park

As we continue we Sickness Week some of you dear readers might be saying, “Are we sick? We haven’t seen a post in ages.” No, we are not sick; we’re just moving a little bit slowly. But when we were sick, about two weeks ago we did run a high fever. Which is sort of like what’s going on at Glacier National Park. Only Glacier National Park doesn’t have insurance and is not going to get better.

The park’s namesakes will not be there forever. As we were hiking to the Grinnell Glacier, one of the largest remaining ice floes in the park, we passed a set of young geologists who had kayaked out to the base of the glacier to measure it. It has shrunk almost 300% from 2001 to our visit in 2004. At this rate, Glacier National Park is anticipating its final glaciers to melt within 25 to 40 years. There is a bit of urgency if majestic ice forms are what you aiming to see.

No glaciers at Glacier National Park? Get used to it because it’s going to happen. Think about it, the next generation of children will visit the Park believing it got its name because it was formed by glaciers not because it has glaciers. Which will make it pretty much like every bit of land north of the 42nd parallel. Well, except for the dramatic ridges, abundant wildlife, and breathtaking landscape.

The culprit is, of course, that numerous American media outlets and countless citizens defensively insist isn’t supposed be happening: global warming. Problem is, it helps little for humans to be defensive. We may have caused this looming calamity but at the end of the day it’s our place on earth that is at risk. The planet, its myriad lifeforms, and its stunning scenery are all going to be fine in the long run. We are the ones who are endangering ourselves, making our sustainable life on earth more precarious by the day.

So what can we do? Firstly, we can stop living in denial. Secondly, we can stop rolling our eyes and scoffing at people who are living in denial. It’s your self-interest that’s at stake. After that a quick google search turns up many organizations with stop global warming: www.fightglobalwarming.com; www.stopglobalwarming,org; www.globalgreen.org; and www.sierraclub.org. The Sierra Club also includes a page with ten things you can do to cure global warming. Most of their suggestions sound pretty easy to us. If anyone else has any suggested email links just email them to us at gabandmichael@usa-c2c.com. Thanks!

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Sickness Week: Everglades National Park

69-year old Presidents who give two-and-a-half hour inaugural speeches don’t represent all the National Parks that can be sick. Not at all. Some Parks are sick themselves and need help. Case in point: the Everglades.

South Florida is a very young land mass, appearing anywhere from 6,000 to 8,000 years ago, a veritable newborn. Native Americans are thought to have crossed the Alaskan land bridge over 10,000 years ago, predating the Everglades. Since their creation, the shallow Everglades slowly meandered on its way to the Florida Bay. Human interaction was limited to a few Indian tribes until the turn of the century when full-scale settlement began in South Florida.

Since then, humans have drained the Everglades, disrupted and redistributed the water flow with canals, dumped sugar cane runoff and untold other waste products into the “River of Grass” and demolished and filled portions for development. The Everglades are in critical condition and there are no plausible solutions, only stopgap measures. Everglades NP is our most endangered National Park.

What can you do to learn more? Picking up Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s ecology classic The Everglades: River of Grass would be a good start or you could surf over to the website of the organization she began: the Friends of the Everglades. There are plenty more links there where you can learn about what you can do to save an American treasure.

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Sickness Week: George Rogers Clark National Historical Park

So last week you’re reading usa-c2c.com. There’s a post on Monday about Jimmy Carter. It seems that their President’s Day week has continued into two President’s Day weeks. But you come back Wednesday…still Jimmy. Then Thursday…still Jimmy. Even Friday…still Jimmy. What has happened? Have they forgotten about me, the dear reader?

No, not at all. The intrepid usa-c2c.com staff was sick. Very sick. So sick we couldn’t open up our computers sick. But we’re better now. Better enough to close out our President’s Day week and segue it into a new theme: illness-related Parks. First up is Vincennes, Indiana’s George Rogers Clark National Historical Park.

Hold up? Was George Rogers Clark a President? Was he especially sickly? No and perhaps sick with power and madness. But this post isn’t about good ol’ GRC, it’s about Vincennes, Indiana’s other favorite son: William Henry Harrison, the ninth POTUS.

Famously, WHH didn’t last very long as Commander-in-Chief. He entered la maison blanche 157 years ago tomorrow, March 4, 1841, and was dead a month later. His crime against the unforgiving fates was a two-hour long inaugural speech…in cold rain…without a coat. His subsequent mild cold turned into pneumonia which turned into our country’s first dead president, WHH, and our first accidental president, John Tyler.

So what does WHH have to do with GRC? Nothing really except they both enjoyed fighting Indians and they both have ties to Vincennes. GRC’s Park remembers his 1779 victory at Vincennes’ Fort Sackville. V Town became the capital of Indian Territory in 1800 and WHH was its first governor. For the next 12 years William would fight scores of Indians thus making Indiana safe for inclusion into these United States.

But legend has it that his victories came with a price: Tecumseh’s curse. Shawnee leader Tecumseh, perhaps apocryphally, manifested his word that any president elected in a year ending in zero would die in office. Did the curse come true? You betcha. WHH was the first victim and until Ronald Reagan’s fortuitous 1981 bullet dodging, the curse had been six for six. W has eluded the doom thus far but six for eight ain’t bad.

Click Here to Read More about George Rogers Clark National Historical Park.

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