With the first seven months of the year the hottest on record and the effects of the drought severely impacting this country’s west coast, from south to north, climate is a topic that is at the forefront. Nevermind whether the heat and drought are part of a climate cycle, exacerbated by human behavior – which seems to be the consensus of experts – or a cycle only, climate is an everyday topic of conversation.
What more extreme and unpredictable climate changes will do to the way of life on this planet is figuring into more and more planning for the future.
A resident of New York wants to make climate an even greater topic of conversation, and action, by creating a museum devoted to climate.
Miranda Massie’s idea is to do for climate what museums do for hundreds of other topics significant and insignificant: increase public awareness.
According to The New York Times, Massie has given up a law career in Manhattan to create the Climate Museum. The museum has had its charter approved by the New York Board of Regents, and it has its governing board and an advisory council. Its leadership comes from diverse sectors, as she wants, including academia, science and the humanities.
What the museum lacks, so far, is money and a building.
In the Times’ story, Massie makes clear that she wants the museum to play two roles: to be a place where what we know about climate can be stored and displayed; and where those holdings can be seeds for change. She wants to use the museum holdings and programs to encourage reactions to the changing climate on the planet, some small and some large. The value of home insulating is one, more education is another.
Is it the poles of the planet that will see – are seeing – the most extreme changes in climate? Today’s museum would have an interactive display of the changing size and locations of ice fields and the changing animal and fish habitat that follows. So, too, an interactive layout of the oceans, where cold-water fish are migrating north with each partial degree change in the temperature of the water.
A museum devoted to climate would have a lot to work with.
The former civil-rights lawyer sees climate change as a civil-rights issue, the need for climate to make it possible for everyone to have the same opportunities for adequate living conditions and for food production, for example. That is a large undertaking.
We expect that we will hear more about museums – large and small – devoted to climate change in numerous parts of the country. This is not a beneficial museum topic just for Manhattan.
