A conversation with Elizabeth Villano, from the NPS Climate Change Response Program, about telling climate stories and finding hope. This episode was recorded in June of 2023.
Glacier Conservancy: https://glacier.org/headwaters Frank Waln music: https://www.instagram.com/frankwaln/ Stella Nall art: https://www.instagram.com/stella.nall/
Climate change in Glacier: https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/climate-change.htm Climate change across the NPS: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/climatechange/index.htm
Lacy Kowalski: Headwaters is brought to you by the Glacier National Park Conservancy. You're listening to Headwaters, a show from Glacier National Park.
Peri Sasnett: Glacier is usually thought of as a nature park, but it's also steeped in human culture and history dating back thousands of years. My name is Peri, and this episode is an interview with climate change interpreter and park ranger Elizabeth Villano. She talks about how climate change isn't just a nature or science story, but is also a history and culture story, and about how national parks and historic sites across the country can lead that conversation. This episode is part of a series of conversations we've been having with a wide variety of climate change experts. These episodes don't have to be listened to in any order, each one stands on its own. And they all focus on a particular aspect of the way the world is being altered by the burning of fossil fuels. Over the past century and a half, human activity has released enough greenhouse gases to warm the Earth's climate over one degree Celsius, with only more warming on the way. Throughout 2023, Daniel sat down with experts to talk about how that warming is altering Glacier National Park, our lives and our futures. [drum and synth beat starts to play] This is an interview that surprised me. Each turn in the conversation went in directions I didn't expect. I've always known that climate change is a big story that connects to pretty much everything, but I'd never heard it explored this fully. If you enjoy visiting national parks, or especially if you like going to ranger programs, this conversation is for you.
Daniel Lombardi: Elizabeth, welcome to headquarters.
Elizabeth Villano: Thanks so much, Daniel. It's great to be here.
Daniel: Will you introduce yourself? Where do you work?
Elizabeth: I work for the Climate Change Response Program, which is the centralized unit within the National Park Service that does climate change communication, resilience, adaptation work for all of the National Park Service sites.
Daniel: And before that, you worked for a bunch of national park sites in the San Francisco Bay Area, right?
Elizabeth: Yeah, I worked at Alcatraz Island, the Marin Headlands, Muir Woods, and Rosie the Riveter World War Two Home Front National Historical Park.
Daniel: Okay, so you're you are a park ranger wearing the flat hat, talking to the public, talking about trees, talking about the history of World War Two, talking about all kinds of stuff.
Elizabeth: And federal prisons.
Daniel: Okay. And now you're working with all the national parks around the country, four hundred-some of them. And you're helping them incorporate climate change into what they're already doing?
Elizabeth: Yeah, I think at last count, there was 424 National Park Service sites across the country.
Elizabeth: And all of those interpreters have a really important job of engaging the public with their site specifically. Mm hmm. And so I am kind of in the next step up from that, where I help create training materials and actually facilitate and lead trainings that help those interpreters find their own site connection to climate change.
Daniel: Is there a park site that isn't connected to climate change?
Elizabeth: Definitely not.
Daniel: And that is exactly why I wanted to talk to you. We're having this whole series of conversations about climate change in the national parks. And I wanted to talk to you because you are talking to all these other national parks, talking about how climate change is connected to everything we do, including historical and cultural park sites. It's not just about the big nature parks like Glacier.
Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly. And in those big nature parks like Glacier, finding the unexpected connections that sometimes create the deeper meanings for visitors.
Daniel: So there for sure wasn't any like, you know, "aha" wake up moment for you on climate change. Like what underpins, you know, what's your motivation? Why do you want to tell climate stories at all?
Elizabeth: So the mission of the National Park Service is to preserve these places that we're in unimpaired for future generations. Mm hmm. And a lot of people understand when we say things like, don't feed the bears, right? That's not an unimpaired state. That is humans feeding bears. Mm hmm. They understand when we say don't throw litter on the ground. Right. Because that's not unimpaired. If we really want to stay true to our mission statement, then we absolutely have to talk about here's ways that we can reduce our carbon footprint so that these places remain unimpaired for future generations, for people to continue enjoying these beautiful places that we love and cherish so much. That's just another form of advocacy that we absolutely need to do.
Daniel: Especially in a place like Glacier that's so easy to see. And such an important point you're making is that. Climate change is impacting and changing in a negative way. Glacier National Park. And we have to acknowledge that and we have to explore it. We have to talk about it. We have to tell the climate stories of Glacier National Park and of all the other park sites as well.
Elizabeth: Mm hmm. Yeah. Even if your park site doesn't have a glacier to melt or, you know, a sea level rise that will destroy your resource, you're still a part of this larger interconnected system across the nation where if we are protecting the National Park Services resources, you're a part of that movement. So part of my work is developing training tools so that anyone across the Park Service can say, How do I talk about climate change more effectively? And then the other part of that is actually leading and facilitating trainings.
Daniel: And that's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you, is because I know you're working on a a big resource, a big toolkit called History and Hope, which is a tool that's going to help more national parks, especially national historical parks, talk about climate change and talk about climate change in places that maybe they haven't a lot in the past. Is that right?
Elizabeth: Yeah. The full title is History and Hope: Interpreting the Roots of Our Climate Crisis and Inspiring Action.
Daniel: Okay. I'm I'm really excited to talk to you today. And I want to talk to you about how the national parks can interpret climate change into the future. Maybe a new approach to talking about climate change that's different than what we've done in the past. But let's start with you a little bit. Did you have a moment or a turning point where you started thinking about climate change a lot more or differently?
Elizabeth: Well, you know, I was thinking about if I had a wake up moment in thinking about climate change as a whole, and I realized the answer is no. It's just been a part of my consciousness since I can remember. Mm hmm. And I think that unfortunately, that's just how the trajectory of climate change, knowledge and understanding is going to go. And as you talk with people who are younger than me, especially, there's no wake up moment. It's yeah, I was born into a world that is increasingly in hospitable and is going to change in ways that we can't imagine or comprehend. Mm hmm.
Daniel: You could imagine a climate scientist 30 years ago or something, and they do some experiments or finally read some new research, and they have this wake up moment. But for people, for millennials, for Gen Z, for younger people, there's not moments like that. It's sort of you learn about it before you really understand it. And it's just climate change is kind of an ever present thing. Is that what I mean? That's how it feels for me too.
Elizabeth: Yeah, absolutely. It's just a part of how I view the world. Any time I'm in the outdoors, it's always kind of there in the back of my mind. And I think a part of my journey with the Park Service was figuring out, okay, we have this massive systemic issue and we're only really talking about it in spaces we think of as natural. But of course, this problem is so much bigger than just in natural spaces. Mm hmm. So how do we use park service sites that are more than just natural? All the cultural history embedded into them to help us think through those really challenging issues with climate change?
Daniel: Yeah. Why? Why And how do you think National Park sites, whether they're cultural or historical or natural, like why are park sites so well-suited for communicating climate change?
Elizabeth: I think first I've noticed in myself and other Park Service interpreters that we kind of hold a false binary of what's natural and what's cultural. Mm hmm. We say, like, this park is natural. There's glaciers, there's trees, there's rocks. And this park is cultural. It talks about wars and World War Two. And yeah, every park site has all of it.
Daniel: Like Glacier National Park is known as a natural park. We have grizzly bears. We have glaciers. Right. But of course, there's a lot of cultural and history here. And I imagine in the same way a site like Rosie the Riveter, you know, that's interpreting World War Two history, it's really a culture site. But of course, it is also part of the natural world and about the natural environment. So they're connected. But beyond that, there's something about like place based learning. And when you go to a place, it helps you learn about something like climate change in a different way. I think national parks as a whole are getting, you know, 300 some million visitors were really trusted and park rangers are really trusted. A. Authorities. It makes something so important like climate change, it makes it really important to talk about at such important places like National Park sites, I think. Do you agree?
Elizabeth: Yeah. And when people come to these sites, they're kind of in a different state of mind. Mm hmm. You know, they're on vacation mode. They're more open to learning, receiving information and feel really connected to the place that they're in. Mm hmm. National parks have such an immense power of place, it can kind of transport you into a different way of viewing the world. Yeah. And not just that. I think if you think about who the nation's storytellers are. Mm hmm. We're kind of the only agency or one of the only agencies that's employed to tell stories of our nation's past, as well as a trained workforce who understands how to dig into these histories and help people find their relevance with them. You'll often hear interpreters or the phrase interpretation. Mm hmm. And I used to get a lot like, What does that mean? Mm hmm. I'm not a language interpreter. I don't translate French to English, but I do interpret why this place matters to you and what helps you find your relevance to it. And so that was really the purpose of this project. And this toolkit is finding more ways we can interpret climate change so that we can say, here's a connection in this park site that maybe relates back to your own life more, that relates back to the qualities of being a person existing in a really messy world.
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Daniel: How did you start out talking about climate change when you were interpreting to the public? When people ask you about climate change, how how did you approach the topic with people?
Elizabeth: It was pretty dark, really.
Daniel: I think it was the same for me.
Elizabeth: I was working at Muir Woods National Monument, which is a beautiful redwood forest about an hour north of San Francisco, and the fog in and around the Bay Area is decreasing. It's decreased by about 30% since the 1950s. And the redwoods rely on the fog. Uh, so at the end of my talk, I would kind of, you know, the crescendo would be the fog is disappearing. And what is that going to mean for these trees? And I think, you know, I would just leave these really uncomfortably long pauses where I would start imagining the worst and people would start imagining the worst.
Elizabeth: And I think the the underlying tone of what I was saying is, I'm so glad you're here now because they're not going to be here anymore. Mm hmm. And. When you're engaging with people, when you're doing programs, it's so energizing usually. And I would just leave these programs feeling so depleted and sad and depressed. And we've seen that people who are interpreting climate change, people who are doing the science of climate change, are really starting to feel depressed and worn down because we're so immersed in this topic that feels really hopeless.
Daniel: Yeah, I think you know that That's exactly how I approached interpreting and talking to the public about climate change when I first started as well. I was, you know, I'm not afraid of scary stories. I like the the doom side of things. I definitely early on focused on climate impacts. You know, climate change is causing wildfire to increase. It's causing the glaciers to melt. And here's how these animals are impacted and this is how much hotter it is. And, you know, telling kind of the the heavy impact side of the story, that was definitely the way I went at it. And I don't know that, you know, I would think that that half is important. You have to recognize that. But it definitely feels like there's something missing.
Elizabeth: Yeah. I mean, did you feel hopeful when you talked about that?
Daniel: I... I don't... I don't know that I did. I think I felt really pretty pessimistic, and I'm guessing that's how the audience felt as well.
Elizabeth: I mean, we are just such social creatures. Like if you think about when your friend is sad, like it kind of pulls you down to. Especially like as the authority figure when you were sad. Like people feel that. Yeah. The doom and gloom approach to climate change interpretation. I think it's pretty pervasive. And, you know, I think in part it's because we have a lot of science. There's no disputing really these climate impacts. And so as an interpreter, when you're looking for something to talk about, you gravitate towards these facts and you want to share them with people you feel so passionately about, the place you live in, work in play in, that you want to bring people into that with you. And I just think. You know, if you are a first time visitor to a National Park Service site and you go to a talk about glaciers melting and then you go back home and it's kind of hard to get food on your table or you're worried about making rent or, you know, you're stuck in a city. You kind of forget what it was like to be in that place. Like, what does a melting iceberg mean to you? If you like, picture your eyes and you think about climate change. The images that are going to come to mind are probably. Icebergs, melting polar bears losing their homes. Maybe like lakes that have been dried out from immense drought or wildfires. And I think as a public, as people were pretty good at understanding the natural impacts of climate change and where the conversation has just lagged for a long time, both in parks and media, is what that means for people.
Daniel: Yeah, it sounds like you're saying the national parks are this perfect venue to talk about climate change, but that most of the time we have focused on the impacts of climate change and we haven't really made the connection for, you know, someone visiting a national park, the connection between how the glaciers are melting and why that matters, or why climate change matters for that person's life at home. Like that connection isn't being made.
Elizabeth: Yeah, and that's played out in the data. Americans are really good at understanding the link between climate change and environmental issues. And then just increasingly bad about thinking about the intersectionality of it. We're great at seeing climate change as an environmental issue, but when you start to think about how climate change will impact our economy, it gets worse. If you start thinking about the intersection between climate change and health, it gets even worse. Although I think during the pandemic there was some conversation about the ways in which climate change will start to increase the risk of vector borne illnesses, increase the risk for pandemics. So maybe we've gotten a little bit better at that. But way at the bottom of that list of comprehending is climate change and social justice. The ways that climate change really increases and magnifies the risks which people are already living in today.
Daniel: Elizabeth, you're thinking about how the national parks are a perfect place to talk about climate change, but how the story and the conversation about climate change has been so negative and so impact in nature focused, then I think there was like a moment where that shifted for you. The story flipped around and you started thinking about the climate conversation in national parks in a new way.
Elizabeth: Yeah. So I went from working in Redwoods at Muir Woods National Monument to interpreting war history and homefront history at Rosie the Riveter World War Two Home Front National Historical Site. So Rosie the Riveter is not a place where people come to expecting to think about climate change. There is kind of that question among staff to like, is this really the place to be talking about climate change? This is an event that happened in the 1940s. This has not just doesn't really have any natural resources to speak of. Leave that to another park site. Hmm. But I'm Italian. I'm not good at leaving things alone. And so I started to think about how how to bring in this story here. And the way in which I decided to do it was let visitors make that connection themselves. And so I put up a whiteboard in the middle of this industrial space. Mm hmm. That said, during World War Two, the country mobilized around a common cause. What cause do you want to mobilize around now? And there is a whiteboard marker. And that was it. So people started to throw their responses up. And I collected all the data, and I tabulated and I tabulated per month. Mm hmm. And I put together word clouds where the biggest word in the middle of this word cloud was the thing most responded to. Mm hmm. And so I started to look at which responses had the most traction. And without fail, month after month, no matter what was happening in the news, it was always climate change.
Daniel: Were you surprised?
Elizabeth: I think I was hopeful. Yeah. And I felt empowered. Hmm. You know, it was that idea that I think a lot of the barriers in talking about climate change are more in my head than it is actually in people's minds. You know, they come to national parks. Seeking answers, seeking perspectives of what happened in the past, and intuitively wanting to make those connections to the present.
Daniel: So then what happened next?
Elizabeth: I came up with a ranger talk called When History Rhymes, kind of based off of that idiom that Mark Twain didn't say, but people think he did. That history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes. So really using this idea of, okay, well, why would we even talk about history if we're not going to try to learn from it? If we are the nation's storytellers, how do we help people draw lessons from that so that we can help them draw their own conclusions and come away from these sites addressing the issues on their minds, which time and time again was climate change.
Daniel: So basically it's like, how can we take the lessons from mobilizing the history of mobilizing for World War two? What can we apply from that to today? Or what do we definitely not want to apply, But like using history as a tool to understand the present and the future. Is that right?
Elizabeth: That's exactly right. And I think World War Two is is actually a great example because a lot of people would come in, would say, oh, that was the greatest generation. That was the last time Americans were really unified. And that's true to an extent. And it also kind of leaves out the ways in which we mobilized at the expense of Japanese-American citizens who didn't need to be excluded, incarcerated. The ways in which they were. And so the way which we default to telling history tends to be pretty cherry picked. And I think that when telling history, it's really important to really encompass everything that goes into it so that when you're thinking about how to create a future, you can kind of course correct from the ways in which we maybe didn't do it well the first time.
Daniel: So there are also lessons from World War Two about what we what we don't want to do if we're going to mobilize and unify as a country. How can we improve this time, From the last time we did that.
Elizabeth: Our mobilization around World War Two was visionary in a lot of ways. Yeah, it brought women into the workforce. It brought people of color into the workforce. It brought people with disabilities into the workforce. I think it was really a time our country said what other creative talents out there exist and how can we utilize them to combat this really large threat that we're facing? This threat of fascism that we all agree is really important? And that that is truly a lesson to be learned in thinking about mobilizing around climate change is how many different pools of talent exist that we can pull from and weave in to climate actions, climate solutions.
Daniel: So there's lessons that things that we can really that can really inspire our response to climate change. And then there's also things like, Oh, we can also do better than we did before. So it's both.
Elizabeth: It also helps us get to the idea of unintended consequences. Mm hmm. Right. Because World War Two, as a person of Jewish descent, I'm not going to say that the emissions we created from World War Two were worth it. Mm hmm. Mobilizing around World War Two was crucial in facing this threat of fascism that was harming people's lives around the world. And if you look at the data emissions trends from World War Two, it's through the charts.
Daniel: Right after the greenhouse gas emissions that were emitted from tanks and industry and building ships and all of that for World War Two. Those greenhouse gas emissions contributed a lot to climate change.
Elizabeth: It was really one of the the key moments of globalization that set forth the global trade routes that today we take for granted so much the ways in which the country flipped itself to bring parts together from around the country faster.
Daniel: It really set globalization and industrialization on a new trajectory.
Elizabeth: Yeah. And then the economic prosperity after World War Two, the ways in which cash was just flushed into the system for the everyday American. Hmm. That also made it so that we were buying a lot more. We were consuming a lot more. Our carbon emissions per person really increased. We went from one car households to two car households. We started getting washing machines. These are all things that are good. But really get to this idea of progress and how progress looks so different for different people and the unintended consequences that can arise from it.
Daniel: It's super interesting to hear you make the connection from, you know, this starting point of responding and mobilizing to World War Two, and then you start seeing all these knock on effects that are very connected to climate change, but also connected to justice and inequality. And that it starts as one thing, you know, or it seems like one thing responding to World War Two. And then you see that it shifts the trajectory of history in a million ways afterward.
Elizabeth: Yeah. And I think that's the coolest thing about Park Service sites, is that every site across the country just has their fingers in almost every period of history you can. And so if you look at all of these sites across the timeline, you actually have a pretty comprehensive picture of who we've been as a society. The decisions that have been made intentionally or unintentionally, that have kind of been steering us towards this current moment of intense climate change.
Daniel: Okay, so now you're working for the Climate Change Response Program and you're talking to park rangers around the country. You've been doing workshops and stuff and you're asking, what do you want visitors to your park to take away from a program about climate change? What have you found out from that, from those conversations?
Elizabeth: The more that we bring out the history of that park site and how people were embedded into that story, the more we see ourselves in it, both in the people of the past as well as who we can become as a future people. I think rangers are searching for ways to communicate to the public that there's still hope and ways to help people find their own place in getting involved.
Daniel: Yeah, which is pretty different from the like, traditional approach which focuses on, you know, nature and animals and the impacts climate change is having on those things, like the impacts of climate change on, you know, melting glaciers. It's pretty different.
Elizabeth: I think grounding people in the realization that there is work to be done, that we are not doomed at this point. Like I actually think we're in the best time to be alive because we're not really locked into anything. We were locked into a certain amount, but it's not it's not concrete from here. There's so many different ways to make it better or worse, depending on the actions we take. And I think that when we as interpretive staff, when we help people realize what their role is in the story, help open up that space, that there are things to be done, then we've really succeeded. And I think there's different ways to do that. And the field as a whole hasn't really come up with the perfect way.
Daniel: At the end of a program on climate change, everyone wants to know, you know, what can I do? What can I do about climate change for me? And what do you say?
Elizabeth: One of the resources I really like to share is called a climate Venn diagram created by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth: Johnson, who's a really prominent marine biologist. She's a Black woman in science, and she really explores the intersection between race and climate.
Daniel: And so she has these overlapping circles of a Venn diagram describing how anyone can get involved in working on climate change.
Elizabeth: Yeah. Okay. And the questions she asks you to consider are: What do you enjoy doing?
Elizabeth: What work needs to be done? And what are you good at? Hmm. And where the intersection of these three circles overlaps is a space for you to think about your own contribution. I think the good and the bad news about climate change is that it's so big and it's so overwhelming that it can feel almost like there's too much to do. But that also means that almost anything that you find joy in, there's a space for you in a climate solution, in a climate action.
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Daniel: So tell me what it's what it's been like talking to people around the country, talking to park rangers around the country about how they are doing climate change interpretation.
Elizabeth: Yeah. So I led a training recently at the Channel Islands. Mm hmm. And one of the things we talked about is trying to put ourselves in the shoes of people who are making history. Hmm. I think we, like, personally have thought about history kind of passively. A lot. Mm hmm. Where it just kind of happens.
Daniel: Where it's, like, governed by forces beyond actual people. And we forget that there are real people with names and, like, feelings involved.
Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly. Mm hmm. And so we. I did this both in my programs and with park rangers, where we came up with a list of social changes that have happened over time. Mm hmm. Things like curb cuts on sidewalks or sewage systems.
Daniel: Curb cuts being like, allowing wheelchairs to go onto sidewalks.
Elizabeth: Yeah. I didn't know this, but, you know, it's only been within the last 30 or 40 years or so that those became prevalent. If you were in a wheelchair before then, it was just hard to navigate cities.
Daniel: Curbs did not have like, slopes that you could go up.
Daniel: So what about the sewage systems then? What's the story behind that one?
Elizabeth: Yeah, I mean, people just used to toss their refuse out in the street. Right? It was like, kind of gross. And no one was really taking responsibility for cleaning it up. And that obviously created a lot of diseases. Mm hmm. You know, a lot of these social systems that we take for granted today, also, a lot of our rights, our voting rights, our civil rights, the fact that women can have bank accounts and credit cards, these are things that we're not just handed to us. They were fought for by people, like you said, with very real emotions against systems that seemed pretty insurmountable.
Daniel: You're describing an understanding of history that is humanizing. You know, there were people throughout history that created the world we live in today.
Elizabeth: And, you know, I imagine that if you asked an abolitionist, do you think that you can actually fight against this massive economic system that profits off of bodies for free.
Daniel: That being slavery.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I imagine that people would have felt pretty pessimistic about the outcome. Yeah, I don't think it was a guarantee at any point that they were going to win. And I think that reminding ourselves that these people and movements had feelings and doubts and insecurities and were just people trying to rise to a moment to confront a crisis that they believed was important and reimagine a world that didn't rely on the systems that they were lived in and trapped in. That's huge. And helping my thinking about climate change.
Daniel: Yeah, that's really powerful that there's lessons we can apply to climate change today.
Elizabeth: And I think that there's almost a skepticism of rangers about and historians about going into the emotions of history. Mm hmm. We think of history as kind of this set of facts that are almost emotionless. And that's how it's been taught too. Mm hmm. Devoid of the human experience. But when you start to go into that and you start to realize that history is just a bunch of people's opinions smushed together that you're thinking about, and those people weren't living in the same world as us, but experiencing the same feelings as us. Then you start to understand a lot more how to apply that into the future, how to confront the pessimism, the anxiety, the doubt, the insurmountable pity we feel of climate change. And look at times in the past where people have overcome these same feelings and persevered through them to create the world we live in now, that sometimes we take for granted.
Daniel: Yeah, it's really powerful to imagine the early days of World War Two and how daunting that must have felt, or the the fight against slavery, or the civil rights movement or the the right to vote that these were such big challenges. And climate change is a similar challenge today that as an individual, it's pretty easy for it to feel so overwhelming.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I think climate change is one of those issues that both manages to make it feel like it's your fault individually, that anything you do is causing it.
Elizabeth: But also that there's nothing you can do to solve it. And that tension is really hard.
Elizabeth: I think one of my turning points in my own interpretation of climate change came from when I was willing to let myself be more vulnerable with the public.
Daniel: Opening up a little bit.
Elizabeth: Yeah. In my programs, I would literally say to people, I'm going to take off my ranger persona now. I'm going to be me, a human who has a job and wears a badge. And I think by doing that, and giving people space to feel the very, very real emotions around climate change, that's almost a necessary foundation to seeing yourself in the solution for climate change.
Daniel: Which is a big part of what you're trying to do then, is is help park rangers interpret climate change and tell the stories of climate change in a way that. Everyone can feel like they're part of the story.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I mean climate change is a human-caused issue, and it has to have a human-caused solution. And I would say the thing that we know that sets us apart as people is our ability to learn from the past. And so this toolkit really or my approach to climate change interpretation, wants to look at a full picture of the past and really take all of the lessons and all of the humanity we can from it.
Daniel: I wanted to ask you about this, you know, to push back on that idea a little bit. Like climate change is so huge and difficult and like it's a tough topic on its own. So why do you want to go dragging history into it? It feels like it could make it even more difficult.
Elizabeth: It absolutely could. But climate change is not a simple story. And so when you try to simplify it and you try to just look at it through a very baseline lens, you're going to get a simple solution. And we know this is not a problem with a simple solution.
Elizabeth: Yeah, it's interesting. In my career as a Park Service interpreter, the two things I've really focused on are talking about climate change and then elevating these undertold stories. And I found that when I bring up these undertold stories, the things that we kind of think about as touchy.
Elizabeth: That's when people are push back the most. You know, they're like, "why are you talking about this?"
Daniel: This sensitive topic?
Elizabeth: But my job as a historian, as the nation's historian
Elizabeth: And storyteller, is to tell all American stories. Mm hmm. We have a Park Service initiative called, "telling all Americans' stories." And historically, over time, those stories were from a pretty small group of Americans. They were generally white, powerful, affluent men stories who absolutely had a role in shaping who this nation is. And we were giving them such an outsized amount of attention that when we pull our attentions back a little and bring in other narratives, it almost can feel like a statement, when in reality it's just broadening the picture. At MuirWoods where I worked, the story we told for decades and decades very largely revolved around three powerful, affluent men who absolutely helped save the forest. Without them, it would not have been there. But as a woman who doesn't have a lot of money to throw around and causes, I was like, "okay, so that's not my solution. I don't see myself there." And so when we started to expand the story and say who else was involved, what other characters were in this, then I started to see myself more in it. The women who helped fight for and saved Muir Woods didn't have the right to vote. So if you look at today, some of the people who are going to be most affected by climate change -- youth -- they can say, "Oh, I don't have the right to vote yet, but I can see instances in which people used a different form of social pressure to get the cause that they cared about to succeed."
Daniel: That's interesting. The story of Muir Woods, this park unit in the Bay Area. The wealthy, powerful white men that, that pushed to create and preserve those trees in that forest... That's not the whole story.
Elizabeth: Yeah. And I would say from the time the forest was protected in 1908, up until 2018, that's the only story we told. What that story left out was that for generations and time immemorial, that forest was protected and stewarded by the Indigenous people of that land, the Huimen Coast Miwok, and the first movement to actually try to mobilize around and protect their woods was this elite, upper class white women's group called the California Club, who didn't appear on a single sign. And so when we started to expand that story, to bring in the role of women, to bring in the stewardship of Indigenous people, not only did we show that there were more spaces in social movements, there were more people at play than just the well-known figureheads. Mm hmm. Not only that, but there were these really deep pools of knowledge on how to best steward the place that we all care about so much.
Daniel: Yeah. So you're bringing in these other stories, you're broadening the history of Muir Woods, but you're trying to do this across the Park Service. And it's, it's good because it's more inclusive, like you're including more people in the story. But it's also helpful because you're getting a deeper and richer understanding of who we are and what this country is.
Daniel: And I think it also maybe helps us imagine who we can be.
Elizabeth: I completely agree with that. I think an argument I hear a lot about bringing up these touchy histories is like, "Oh, you're just focusing on the bad stuff." Hmm. But, I mean, if you think about raising a kid, if you're not talking about the bad stuff, how are they going to learn how to be a better adult? Like, it's that it's those formative lessons that teach us who we were and who we want to become. And I think the more I learn about the power of storytelling, the more I really appreciate our role in doing it. And we've actually found that when people today are listening to the same engaging story, their heart rates synchronize across time, across space, so their heartbeats will literally sync up when listening to that same engaging story, which shows that our bodies are just hardwired for this. Across time immemorial, we've used stories to dictate who we are, whether we're talking about creation myths. Or, you know, biblical narratives or the Grimm's Fairy tales.
Daniel: Or the story of World War Two.
Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly.
Daniel: It really emphasizes the importance of what we're trying to do in the National Park Service and what interpretation is trying to do.
Elizabeth: Exactly. Use that power of place to help people realize their place in a really broad story over time.
Daniel: Elizabeth, where are you seeing some really cool stories emerging from the national parks? Where are you seeing history and climate change really intersect in an interesting way? Because I know you're talking to people all around the country.
Elizabeth: Yeah. This product that I've mentioned earlier, I think at this point we've collaborated with around 40 different park sites around the country.
Daniel: This History and Hope Toolkit and program you're, you're working on.
Elizabeth: Mm hmm. I think sometimes the strongest stories are the ones that are the least expected. Mm hmm. So, for example.
Daniel: Like, everyone expects Glacier National Park to be talking about melting glaciers and climate change. That's old news, right?
Elizabeth: Exactly. Like, how does that really apply to me? Mm hmm.
Daniel: Do you have any examples of parks that are telling these cool stories about history and climate?
Elizabeth: One of my favorites is from Maggie Walker National Historic Site out in Virginia, where it's a woman who was really central to a lot of conversations around Black economic empowerment in the early 1900s.
Daniel: She was a social justice activist.
Daniel: Okay. So you don't really expect that to be connected to climate change.
Elizabeth: Right. And, you know, it's a story that by and of itself deserves to be told. Mm hmm. But Maggie Walker also lived through a period where her house went from candlelight to electricity, which at the surface level is like, okay, she lived through a period of technology change. Mm hmm. But then you start to think about how much society changed when she lived through it. Mm hmm. Like, her house became electric. She got a dishwasher at some point or something like that. Like these little things that we take for granted today are actually immense amounts of societal change of everyone who lived through it. Mm hmm. And when we think about the scope of the challenges today for climate change, it can feel big. You know, it's like, wow, so much needs to change. But that has happened time and time and again.
Daniel: So she's living through a really revolutionary time.
Elizabeth: Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, if there's one trait I would call humans, it's adaptable. Hmm. Especially if there's something that can make our lives better. Mm hmm. So Maggie Walker went from candlelight to electricity? Mm hmm. She went from a horse and buggy to a car. And not just any car, but an electric car, which I didn't know was invented in the early 1900s.
Elizabeth: Right. So when confronted with a better option, we've taken it time and time and again. And I feel like right now we're we're nervous about the changes that need to happen. But that's just been a part of the experience of being a person over time.
Daniel: And it's cool that National Park Sites can tell that story about how we've gone through these big changes in the past.
Elizabeth: Yeah. And, you know, that's at a historic site in Virginia. But the infrastructure at Glacier has changed over time too.
Elizabeth: It's incorporated these new technologies. So you come here thinking about, oh, the glaciers are melting. We've heard that story. Mm hmm. It's not that it's not an important story. But what if, when you're here, you can also think about the ways that society has adapted to new technologies over time?
Daniel: Right. The first park headquarters was here with, you know, logs of wood.
Elizabeth: Probably from the park.
Daniel: Yeah. And, you know, today we have solar panels on the roof. It's a big change.
Elizabeth: That's a story of the innate creativity, adaptability and just pioneering spirit of people. And I think that's something that when I look to the future, I identify those as traits we really need to embody.
Daniel: And we really need to tell stories like that in the national parks.
Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly.
Daniel: So looking at our past, looking at our history, that helps us. It helps us imagine the future and see how we've gone through these changes before. And I think it can help us think more creatively about the solutions that we're working on right now, like the solutions to climate change that we're implementing. Have you seen that play out or how have you seen that?
Elizabeth: I think that's spot on. I think that sometimes in the environmental movement it feels like there's a crisis of imagination. That we feel like we have to settle for these options that aren't really getting to the root of the problem. You know, if we put-- if we transition to solar panels everywhere, that is fantastic. And I think what that's missing also is that the same systems that have created climate change are also the same systems that have really set up and exacerbated a lot of the social inequalities that we're still very much grappling with. I think in both of these cases, there's the idea of something being deemed as "expendable." And I put that in air quotes, but I'm on a podcast, so imagine those air quotes around the word expendable. Mm hmm. Where we think about people as expendable. We absolutely as a society thought about people who were enslaved as expendable. Mm hmm. We thought about the Indigenous stewards and caretakers of this land as expendable for this idea of progress. And progress has brought us to where we are today. And it was done so with the mentality that there was okay things to sacrifice along the way. And I see that a lot of times in climate solutions as well, where we say, "okay, well, we can get some stuff out of this. You know, we can just try to reduce our emissions without looking at the people or places or land that have been viewed expendable along the way."
Daniel: Tell me about this "yes/and" approach to history.
Elizabeth: Well, the "yes/and" approach, I think, comes from improv like. "Yes... And. I like that idea -- and." Mm hmm. And I think we can "yes/and" the successes of history. And a great example of that is the creation of the National Park Service that you and I both work for. This Service that we are a part of, the National Park Service, was a revolutionary idea. That we should protect places around the country for future generations. Mm hmm. We've been called America's best idea. Mm hmm. But the "and" part of that comes from the ways in which the creation of the National Park Service disregarded the existence, the sovereignty and the intentional land management of the places that we've protected by Indigenous people.
Daniel: So you're saying the National Park Service is a pretty cool idea?
Elizabeth: Yes. America's best. So they say. Yeah.
Daniel: So yes. And we can do better as we go forward. We can do better.
Elizabeth: Yeah. And I think the way to do better now is that we have land that's been protected through this incredible idea -- and -- what are the ways that we can incorporate those deep pools of knowledge from those Indigenous people over time? These are people who have lived and sustained and stewarded landscapes for time immemorial, who have so much knowledge accumulated and built up. And there's actually there's been studies that have shown that land stewarded intentionally by Indigenous people can be more productive, more biodiverse than land that's just been left alone. Kind of reshapes our idea of what a wilderness is.
Daniel: It's kind of hard, I think, for people to imagine the world they want to see. It's easier to imagine the worst case scenario.
Elizabeth: I completely agree with that. And I think, you know, that gets back to what we were talking about earlier, where if you look at movements of the past, I think it was a huge feat of the imagination that they even fought for those big social changes. I imagine that if you were enslaved, thinking about an economic system that didn't revolve around slavery must have been mind boggling.
Daniel: It would have been a really, you know, sci-fi utopian kind of thinking to imagine a whole different world.
Elizabeth: Yeah. And almost any social change you can think of, the world that they fought for was must have just felt incomprehensible at the time. The way that sometimes I feel myself thinking about climate change now, which is when I think about a just equitable climate future, it can almost feel incomprehensible and insurmountable. Hmm. And I think that that's that's par for the course with these movements. That's a part of the process. And it's okay to let yourself feel that and recognize that we've gone through that before. We've come out on the other end.
Daniel: Yeah. That studying our our own history can be an inspiring reminder of that.
[drumbeat plays to mark a transition]
Daniel: For people going to interpretive programs, what motivates them to take action on anything, I guess, but what motivates people to take action on climate change?
Elizabeth: I think the verdict is still out, but from what I've seen, the biggest discourse is kind of around, is it fear or is it hope?
Daniel: Like, should this ranger program inspire people and be hopeful so that they'll, they'll take action? Or should it scare them? And should they be worried into taking action?
Elizabeth: Yeah, exactly. You know, I think that there's merit in both. We don't want to sugarcoat the fact that the climate is changing. We are locked in to a degree of changes.
Daniel: Mm hmm. The glaciers here are melting, and the climate has already warmed quite a bit.
Elizabeth: Yeah. And I think that if you try so hard to be hopeful that you don't acknowledge any of that, then you're, you're in a false sense of hope. Mm hmm. And there's one of the biggest ideas I've seen around it is that if you're talking about hope, there's two different types of hope. There's the hope that something will happen. Someone will do something kind of that passive hope, that passive you of history we've been talking about. And then there's an active hope. The hope that if you do something, it can make an impact. And one of my favorite quotes is by an author, Rebecca Solnit, where she says, "Hope isn't just a lottery ticket that you sit on the couch clutching. It's an ax that you break down doors with." And I think that's really where I lean towards, is I want to instill in you the confidence that there's still things to be done, but that it's not just going to happen. Nothing in history has just happened. There are people pushing forces, and you're going to be involved in that, and the causes you care about, or it's just going to happen to you.
[hopeful guitar and drumbeat plays]
Daniel: I love that. Thanks so much for talking with us about all this today.
Elizabeth: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
[music continues to play]
Peri: Headwaters is funded by donations to the Glacier National Park Conservancy. As an organization dedicated to supporting the park, the conservancy funds a lot of sustainability initiatives, from solar panels on park buildings to storytelling projects like this one. The Conservancy is doing critical work to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. You can learn more about what they do and about how to get involved at Glacier.org. This show is created by Daniel Lombardi, Michael Faist, Gaby Eseverri, and me, Peri Sasnett. We get critical support from Lacy Kowalski, Melissa Sladek, Kristen Friesen, and so many good people with Glacier's natural and cultural resource teams. Our music was made by the brilliant Frank Waln, and the show's cover art is by our sweet friend Stella Nall. Check out Frank and Stella's work at the links in the show notes. Besides sharing this episode with a friend who might appreciate it, you can help us out by leaving a rating and review in your podcast app. Thanks for listening.
