{"id":23191,"date":"2016-08-20T13:08:03","date_gmt":"2016-08-20T20:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=23191"},"modified":"2016-08-20T13:08:03","modified_gmt":"2016-08-20T20:08:03","slug":"presidential-weekly-address-celebrating-the-100th-anniversary-of-the-national-park-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=23191","title":{"rendered":"Presidential Weekly Address: Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the National Park Service"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Martha&#8217;s Vineyard, MA&#8230;Hi everybody. Earlier this summer, Michelle, Malia, Sasha and I headed west\u2014to the national parks at Carlsbad Caverns and Yosemite. And I\u2019ve got to say, it was a breath of fresh air. We explored hundreds of feet underground, standing beneath dripping stalactites in New Mexico. We hiked up a misty trail next to a waterfall in California. And I even took a few pictures of my own \u2013 not bad, right?<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_bPS_dBR4Vs\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But the truth is, no camera \u2013 especially one with me behind it \u2013 can fully capture the beauty and majesty of America\u2019s national parks. From Glacier and Denali to Gettysburg and Seneca Falls, our more than 400 parks and other sites capture our history and our sense of wonder. As FDR once said: \u201cThere is nothing so American as our national parks\u2026 the fundamental idea behind the parks\u2026 is that the country belongs to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This month, we\u2019re celebrating the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. And I want to encourage all of you to \u201cFind Your Park\u201d so that you and your family can experience these sacred places, too. If you\u2019re a military family, you can even get in free through Michelle and Jill Biden\u2019s Joining Forces initiative. And if you\u2019ve got a fourth grader in your family, you can get a free pass, too, by going to EveryKidInAPark.org.<\/p>\n<p>I hope you do. Because all across the country, the National Park Service is preparing for a big year. We\u2019re revitalizing a grove of giant Sequoias in Yosemite; repairing the Lincoln Memorial; and enhancing the iconic entrance to our first national park at Yellowstone.<\/p>\n<p>As President, I\u2019m proud to have built upon America\u2019s tradition of conservation. We\u2019ve protected more than 265 million acres of public lands and waters \u2013 more than any administration in history. We\u2019ve recovered endangered wildlife species and restored vulnerable ecosystems. We\u2019ve designated new monuments to Cesar Chavez in California, the Pullman porters in Chicago, and the folks who stood up for equality at Stonewall in New York \u2013 to better reflect the full history of our nation. And we\u2019ve got more work to do to preserve our lands, culture, and history. So we\u2019re not done yet.<\/p>\n<p>As we look ahead, the threat of climate change means that protecting our public lands and waters is more important than ever. Rising temperatures could mean no more glaciers in Glacier National Park. No more Joshua Trees in Joshua Tree National Park. Rising seas could destroy vital ecosystems in the Everglades, even threaten Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.<\/p>\n<p>So in the coming years and decades, we have to have the foresight, and the faith in our future, to do what it takes to protect our parks and protect our planet for generations to come. Because these parks belong to all of us. And they\u2019re worth celebrating \u2013 not just this year, but every year. Thanks everybody. Have a great weekend. And see you in the parks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Martha&#8217;s Vineyard, MA&#8230;Hi everybody. Earlier this summer, Michelle, Malia, Sasha and I headed west\u2014to the national parks at Carlsbad Caverns and Yosemite. And I\u2019ve got to say, it was a breath of fresh air. We explored hundreds of feet underground, standing beneath dripping stalactites in New Mexico. We hiked up a misty trail next to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Fullscreen-capture-8202016-10418-PM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}