On a recent visit to New Orleans my wife and I visited the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas for the first time in quite a long time. We were extremely impressed with the Amazon River and rainforest exhibit. It was an amazing, entertaining, and thoroughly immersive experience.

However there was far too little about human caused climate change and the threats to the rainforest. We did note the one panel that mentioned ‘peril’ at the beginning and the one information panel so close to the exit door that stopping to read it caused the electric eye to open and close the door. There is little doubt that the fate of the Amazonian Rainforest is one of the most important issues in combating climate change and there was nothing in the entire installation that even attempted to deliver that message. The immensity of the river, its watershed, and the rainforest was instead emphasized. The latest IPCC report warning that the whole system is approaching its tipping point may be too recent to be included, but the threat and the stakes have been known for long enough.

Turning to the Gulf of Mexico exhibit or area in the Aquarium, we understand that the principal issues are nutrient loading from agriculture upriver, climate driven increased sea level and temperature causing increasing strengthening and frequency of storms and hurricanes, as well as oil spills caused by the oil infrastructure already there. None of this is even mentioned. Surely the combined financial support of the seven fossil fuel companies prominently displayed as sponsors is sufficient to provide up to date science and clear messaging on these crucial issues.

The last time we visited the Aquarium there was a very good presentation and film about the threat to the wetlands that fossil fuel infrastructure and operations pose. It highlighted the benefits of coastal wetlands for storm buffering and for filtration of toxics and nutrients before they enter the Gulf. It described efforts to make the wetlands larger and healthier. There was little to nothing about any of that when we were there.

Unless the Institute has chosen not to educate the public about climate change and the impacts of industry and pollution on these natural systems, I am hard put to understand the almost complete silence. What would a member of the public, who had not heard of climate change and its effects have learned about it after visiting your aquarium? It is the biggest issue in science, oceanography and natural history, and every single natural system, location, plant and animal found or discussed is already, and will be increasingly, negatively affected by it, to say nothing of every single visitor.

Your content seems designed to entertain, and charm, not to educate about issues or solutions, and most certainly not to in any way to challenge. This is a time of world wide environmental and climate challenge, a time for broader and more urgent education, and the Institution should endeavor to meet it.

Sincerely, Jan Kublick and Kim Cameron