Pirate's Cove

This is your fault, you know

Trump’s workforce cuts threaten climate protection in national parks

That’s the headline for the Environmental (weenie) Health News article, but, let’s go to the source article

Trump takes aim at the people who protect national parks from climate change

The last few months have been a tumultuous time for National Park Service employees. After President Donald Trump took office, the federal agency laid off roughly 1,000 employees in a purge dubbed the Valentine’s Day massacre. Then, after two judges ruled that the layoffs were unlawful, they were rehired. Now, as the Department of Government Efficiency begins executing an official and much larger plan to slash the federal workforce, many employees are anxiously awaiting the next round of cuts. The White House has reportedly directed the agency to reduce its workforce by as much as 30 percent in the coming months.

Despite the agency’s murky future, some changes are clear: As the days get warmer, the numbers of visitors to the parks will begin to tick up. As spring gives way to summer, the Western landscape will begin to dry out, and the risk of drought and wildfires will also increase. The stakes for the climate — and for the parks in the face of climate-fueled disasters — couldn’t be higher.

“Cities and places that are more developed are more resistant to changes in climate, but in these wild areas, we can see more warning signs, more indicators if the patterns start changing dramatically,” said one National Park Service employee. “With all of these positions lost, there will be no one on watch anymore.”

You know, I’m all for having more than enough people working for the NPS. One of my favorite agencies (though, really, the majority of parks should be state, not national). But, there are a lot whose jobs are not really helping visitors or maintaining the parks, they are Very Silly and unnecessary

The National Park Service has been working to prepare for a warming world. It has had an ecosystem inventory and monitoring program in place since 1998 and a climate change response program since 2010. In recent years, it invested in building out both programs to detect and respond to the rapid changes in ecosystems and the growing number of disasters taking place in the parks. It also trained thousands of rangers, educated the public about the impacts of climate change on the parks, and adopted a national framework to help park staff decide which ecosystems to prioritize saving. In 2023, the agency developed a plan to electrify park vehicle fleets and buildings to reduce the parks’ overall greenhouse gas emissions.

These are just all scam jobs, and probably get overpaid by a lot. They are unnecessary. The EHN article puts it in short form

After laying off about 1,000 park employees in February, the Trump administration plans to cut up to 30% of the National Park Service’s workforce, impacting both public-facing staff and scientists tracking climate impacts.

None of those “tracking climate (scam) impacts” employees are necessary. I’d love to see an audit on how much work they actually do.

Terri Thomas, a retired natural resources manager who worked in Crater Lake, Yosemite, and Everglades National Parks, said she is particularly concerned about the potential impact of weakening the inventory and monitoring program, which collects scientific information about how a park’s native plants, animals, and birds are evolving.

You know, monitoring the waters and land are worthy goals, but, they tend to ignore the actual environmental impacts for the climate cult stuff. I’ve said numerous times on this blog and in person that it bothers me a lot that the cult has taken over true environmentalism, which means it’s hard to do real environmental work.