The Climate Changes Before Your Eyes
About 66 million years ago, a , transforming climate so severely that approximately three-quarters of all species went extinct. Now, said Michael J. Novacek, senior vice president and provost of science at the , were kind of the asteroids. As that human impact becomes an increasingly urgent and increasingly politicized subject, the museum is focusing its efforts to explore climate change in a way that emphasizes the science, not the controversy. Its approach includes continually updating its climate-related exhibits and planning to commemorate the 50th anniversary of with a themed festival in April. There is a comprehensive full-court press that were bringing to this, said Ellen V. Futter, president of the museum. Its efforts to educate the public on climate change amount to a lot of leverage, institutionally, she added, and we think thats our role. We do have a civic mission. That mission is never more clear than in the museums Rose Center for Earth and Space, where an immense, dominates the . Although the hall has had a climate-change display since its opening in 1999, the museum overhauled it extensively in 2018. Instead of a huge wall graphic, the hall now has what looks like a television screen for a giant. Made up of 36 tiles, each a 55-inch, high-definition digital monitor, the wall features imagery from NASA and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration along its upper surface. While you gaze at the floating continents from a voyaging astronauts perspective, you see a series of rotating statements informing you of facts like, Human-caused carbon dioxide is warming our climate. We really envisioned that this would serve as the billboard for the climate-change exhibit, said Lauri Halderman, the museums vice president for exhibition. But while most billboards remain static, the wall evolves. A few months ago, the museum added new images and material, including references to the so-called , the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. The staff also incorporated NASA data about how much leaf coverage was gained and lost worldwide between June 2000 and June 2018. Now that 2019 end-of-year reports are available, the wall will reflect them as well. The goal, said Rosamond Kinzler, the museums director of science education, is to take the research findings and really put that evidence in the hands of the visitors. It is completely in their hands at the interactive stations lining the walls bottom edge. Each station has labeled panels with embedded buttons, dials and levers that will cause graphs, charts, maps and vivid images to appear low on the climate wall screens, directly in front of the viewer. Theres so much noise around climate change thats political noise, not scientific noise, Ms. Halderman said. To make the science clear, we were working to find many different ways to communicate. The stations are grouped into three categories. explains subjects like the greenhouse effect, the oceans influence and the distinction between weather and climate. A climate quiz invites you to test your knowledge. illustrates the unfolding crisis. You use a lever to move through a graph of global temperatures over 140 years; slide another lever, and your view travels north or south over an image of the globe, where bright orange spots light up, revealing where climate change is most significant. Press buttons, and you see data on the relative effects of natural and human factors. Perhaps the most disquieting section is , which features before and after images of affected sites worldwide. An aerial photograph of Greenland in 2016 shows lakes and rivers that were not there in 2014 that is how fast the ice is melting. If you turn a dial labeled How Will Our Lives Change, you see a graphic present a succession of possible outcomes, like disease spread, food shortages and political instability. But, Dr. Kinzler cautioned, what will happen is related to what humans choose to do, which is frankly less about the science and more about societal questions and policy. This is where hope creeps in. The display specifies the risks if warming continues unabated, but a video also explains local efforts like the , a plan to reduce carbon emissions by painting rooftops with a heat-reflective white coating. Opposite the wall, documents how climate changed before human intervention. It includes a a kind of 110,000-year-old time capsule as well as objects like . Climate research also appears in other areas of the museum. , a new that opened in January, shows how studying other planets atmospheres provides clues to climate change here. And the , which includes a , illustrates how climate change affects ecosystems. All these departments will play a role in . Scheduled for April 18, four days before Earth Day, the festival will offer a mix of science, art, performance, participatory experiences and hands-on activities, said Alonso Teruel, assistant director of public programs. Everything will be climate change oriented. Science presentations will include a planetarium-focused program and a new museum video highlighting the developments and challenges since Earth Day 1970. For young visitors, EarthFest will host , a Brooklyn organization whose program helps elementary school students write original plays on environmental themes. The celebration will also incorporate , an annual opportunity for visitors to bring in fossils and nature specimens, which experts will analyze for signs of climate change. The museum will show off some of its own rarely seen collections, as well as live creatures like spiders and other arthropods. Insects tell an incredible story about climate change where did they live and why, Mr. Teruel said. Adult visitors can learn even more about insects roles on May 6, when the museums , a monthly program of cocktails and conversation, will feature Mexican research on how the climate-driven spread of fruit flies affects an endangered fruit: the . While the museum will present all these programs as science, not advocacy, its intent is to inform the public of the futures possible risks and rewards. I like to say this is the most important century of the environment in the history of the human species, Dr. Novacek said. This is really the pivotal point in our evolution.