I recently visited the Museum during a ski trip, and I want to start by recognizing the outstanding building, its obvious commitment to sustainability, its stunning setting, and the quality of most of the exhibits.
When I asked where I might see information about Climate Change I was pleased to hear that I could not miss it, though it was on the top floor. That the top floor itself was not to be missed was obvious on arrival there, as was the wall partially devoted to climate. However, the importance and urgency of the topic was not at all conveyed by the content of the exhibit. A visitor would easily conclude from the graph on the timeline that the climate has periodically varied within the current range several times in the last 400,000 years. Intentionally or not, that fits nicely with the ‘the climate is aways changing’ narrative so common to the ‘the scientists are just alarmists’ school of climate denial and pushback. Nowhere in your exhibit is the speed of the increase emphasized, or the fact that all of what your visitors would consider the ‘modern world’ with its current 8 billion people came about in the last 100 years, and in that time, the fossil fuel-based economy has already begun destroying much of that very modern economic, social, agricultural system. Unabated, the destruction will be complete in the next 50 years, that is, in the lifetimes of most of your visitors, and every one of their children and grandchildren.
Human caused climate disruption is already affecting the lives of every one of those visitors. It is the single most important natural history story now, or ever. Every visitor to a natural history museum, aquarium, nature center, state or national park or science museum should be presented with clear, unequivocal information about climate, humans’ effect on it, and its growing effect on civilization already, and increasingly, in the very near future. These institutions, your institution, should be sources of unequivocal information about the scope of the problem, its potential consequences, and the overwhelming scientific consensus that underlies these concerns. The science has been settled for more than a hundred years. The effects that we are experiencing have been modeled and predicted since the 80s, with undeniable accuracy. For any visitor to come to your Museum of Natural History and not leave with a strong and deep appreciation of climate change represents a missed opportunity to convey the single most important fact of natural history or for that matter, of modern civilization.
I look forward to hearing from you. When my wife and I have conveyed this message to other centers and museums, we have often been told that to present the information in a forthright manner is to invite occasional blow back, and to risk funding. Instead, we are often pointed to climate related material in member communications or to occasional talks or lectures which deal with climate change. The risk of occasional complaint is not sufficient to evade telling the scientific truth. In our view the information must be delivered to the visiting public. If they leave your museum without the chance to understand the problem, its causes and consequences, the Museum has not done its job. If a museum of the caliber of yours is not informing them of the true nature and importance of Climate Change, they are entitled to leave believing it is not an important issue. That is unequivocally wrong, and a lost opportunity to help address the climate crisis.
Thank you .
Jan S. Kublick
Tully, NY