No environments were harmed during the interpretation of this history.

That remix of the statement we’ve seen at the end of movies for years regarding the treatment of animals is about to become the bottom line at national parks nationwide, according to some informed sources.

I’m told a videoconference hosted last week by Jonathan Jarvis, director of the National Park Service, contained something of a directive related to climate change. The plan? The nation’s 401 national park units and 59 national parks are being asked to incorporate climate change into all interpretive programs.

What it means to Vicksburg National Military Park is an unknown for park officials and its team of rangers, chief of operations Rick Martin told me Monday.

“What we’ll probably address here is reducing our carbon footprint,” he said, conceding the impetus for the idea began with parks where the topic might be more easily wedded with their respective park experiences.

Take Glacier National Park in Montana and Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska. Both feature glaciers, which, when scientists find in a state of recession, we’re told often. Both feature on their grounds endangered species of wolves and other mammals. Also, within Glacier Bay is a 57,000-acre tract that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 1986 declared part of a World Biosphere Reserve, the largest of its kind in the world.

Martin said those parks lend themselves to green-friendly narratives and the whole Mother Earth thing. Here, where the national park preserves the site of a crucial Civil War campaign — in Lincoln’s words, the “key” the Union needed in its pocket to secure victory — the push to wed climate change and Grant’s and Pemberton’s strategies and battle approaches during the Siege of Vicksburg seems incongruent.

Martin said concerns abound on emissions from the Port of Vicksburg on the monuments nearest the harbor and on the USS Cairo, the top of which is protected on most sides by a tight canopy from most of the elements. “It’s covered, but it’s still exposed to the elements. It’s not insulated,” he said, adding the park plans to re-treat the wood on the old gunboat at some point soon.

I’d like to think I’m a thinker, but let’s stop straining for a moment here. There are a few industries at the port that do deal in petroleum and byproducts thereof. But it’s not in the same league as, say, the oil refineries between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that got the unfortunate “cancer alley” moniker in the 1980s after emissions were thought to have spiked disease rates. I’d have to see a credible study where the vessel is literally swabbed for chemicals to see where it fits into climate change. The restoration job on the wood sounds logical; thoughts of enclosing the Cairo permanently seem to have faded due to cost.

Since the Mississippi River changing course in the late 19th century fits a more geologic theme than climatic, Martin mentioned the park would soon get an electric car to use around the 117-acre park. I asked whether it would be a plug-in job (for which there are no outlets here in the South, unlike out West where gas is pricier) or a brand-name hybrid. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just know we’re getting one.”

Fitting. Imagine if Grant had been told by Lincoln, “You know, we’re using too much gunpowder. The men can’t breathe out there. Let’s use knives instead.”

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Danny Barrett is a reporter and can be reached by email at danny.barrett@vicksburgpost.com or by phone at 601-636-4545.