Tuesday, July 5, 2016
By:
This week brought back a bit of much needed respite from the hectic work weeks previously. With congress on recess I was able to relax a bit and give my suits a break for a week. The pace change took some getting used to. While the House has been in session, my time is often spent pouring over one topic and then immediately moving onto the next with nary a moment to breath. On recess however, I was able to slow it down and find a topic of interest to me to work on as a long term project.
I have seen several calls from Representatives asking for the government to fund more heavy duty icebreakers for use in the Arctic because as the ice recedes there is increased access to shipping and tourism lanes and the icebreaker fleet is crucial to maintaining them. My first reaction was "Wait a second, if I have ice cubes in water they melt far slower than crushed ice. If we crush all the ice in the arctic, would that not just speed the recession of ice in the arctic and contribute to sea levels rising?" It turns out that is not a question easily answered and it turned into a much deeper search into the topic and into the understanding of what would drive the policy to have more as well as the drive to research the effects in greater detail because currently the US is lacking in both research on risk, as well as, fleet size and by a large margin too.
Fast forward now to the weekend although I may have entered the weekend with ambition to explore and do fun things, I just didn't. I spent the weekend mostly resting, reading, and cleaning up around the apartment. The resting was definitely necessary for me to function in the coming week. The Fourth of July was another relatively relaxing day until the evening. I spent the day out at lunch and hanging with some of the other interns before trying to brave the capitol for the Capitol Fourth Concert. Sounds fun. However, some forethought would have been good. Our group ended up getting there just in time for heavy rains, we sat on the steps of the Capitol and all hid under umbrellas trying, and failing to stay dry. When the rain finally did subside though, it was a pretty cool concert and firework show; rain did stop in time for the actual show itself. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to celebrate the Fourth in our nation's capital and I look forward to celebrating more in the future!
Demitri Call