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| National Museum of Natural History Photo: Ileana Johnson, April 7, 2014 |
The museum will display an
“unrivaled” fossil collection but will also explore how “The distant past
affects all of us today and will continue to do so in the future. How will
climate change impact the natural world and our daily lives? How can we make
informed choices about our ecosystems as individuals and as a species? How can
we all become informed citizens of a changing planet?”
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| Fossil Hall |
Everybody loves the
Smithsonian! On any given day, the most popular exhibit, the Fossil Hall, is
teeming with adults and impressionable children of all ages from around the
country who are eager to learn, see, touch, and experience what the world was
like when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. There is a fascination with large
mammals that every child has experienced growing up. What better place to add a
heavy dose of environmental activism?
New signs have appeared in
the museum, signs I had not seen during previous visits. For example, a board
with very large letters, CLIMATE CHANGE, informed visitors about what
scientists forecasted:
“During the 20th
century, Earth had a relatively stable climate. Today, we know this is unusual
and that climatic variation is normal.
(Museum emphasis) Deep sea and lake sediments, along with ice cores reveal
cycles of climate change that shifted grassland and forest boundaries, created
and melted glaciers, and stimulated human migrations and retreats over millions
of years.”
“The hall opened over 30
years ago. To keep the information fresh, we’ve added a series of signs
throughout to show how geological processes and climate change are directly linked to changes in our ecosystem.”
Does keeping the ‘information fresh’ mean adjusting scientific facts to fit the
consensus political ideology of those who believe in anthropogenic global
warming?
The Hall of Paleontology explains
that “For over 4.6 billion years, the Earth has cycled through periods of
ecosystem birth and death, species formation and extinction.”
If I was a curious student,
I would be confused when another panel explains, “Following the historical
pattern, after ten thousand years of interglacial warmth, we should be due for
the onset of a new glacial epoch. However, unlike previous Ice Age cycles of
warm and cold periods, human population
growth and industry have disrupted the fluctuation of cycles. (Museum
emphasis) Rising levels of CO2 are pushing Earth toward alarming levels of
warming, resource depletion, and biological extinction.”
What is a student to think
after reading this? Humans are guilty of global warming. “As glaciers retreat,
sea levels rise, and Arctic ice disappear at a dangerous rate, we need to ask ourselves how we can be better
stewards. It’s OUR planet.” (Museum emphasis)
Does the average student
know that the level of Antarctic ice has increased last year? Would they know that the
exploratory ship from Australia was ice bound for 13 miles and a rescue had to
be mounted from different countries, at great expense of fossil fuels and time
to save the global warming professors and scientists on board who were there to
document and measure the melting of the Antarctic Ice? Has science definitively
measured significant sea level rise?
If I were a student, I would be confused because I would not know what a planet steward is, how I could take care of the planet by myself, I would feel overwhelmed, and then I would wonder who decides what normal is and why are there conflicting messages - one panel in the museum says that climatic variation is normal and another that we are causing global warming.
Another board teaches
students what causes Earth’s temperatures to fluctuate:
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“Shifts in the
Earth’s axis and changes in its orbit, affecting the intensity of sunlight
reaching the Earth”
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“Changes in the
energy output of the sun”
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“Reduction in
North Atlantic Deep Water flow, which decreases or changes oceanic circulation
patterns”
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“Changes in the
composition of the atmosphere”
The board points out that “the
only factor that humans can affect is the composition of the atmosphere.” But
the Earth has always been affected by the amount of energy coming from the sun
that reaches the planet. And for several million years “changes in the Earth’s
orbit called Milankovitch cycles have caused cycles of global warming and
cooling.” Were humans changing the composition of the atmosphere millions of
years ago?
The Earth can go through a
cycle when the orbit is more oval than circular – this can last 100,000 years.
The Earth can wobble when it spins – this cycle can be 21,000 years long. The
Earth’s axis can tilt – this cycle can last 41,000 years. “When some parts of
these cycles are combined and occur at the same time, they are responsible for
major changes to the Earth’s climate… including ice ages.”
If I was an impressionable
child and most of them are, I wouldn’t know that science uses modeling to make
predictions about the future and these models can be flawed or represent just
one point of view, the view of the “consensus”
scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ideologues.
I would leave the museum
with the following words seared in my brain. “We may be facing decades and
perhaps even centuries of higher temperatures than humanity has ever seen… due
to an enhanced greenhouse effect.”
The museum also tells visitors
that carbon dioxide affects climate change, that during the “past 1,000 years,
increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide from human burning of fossil fuels have
caused the Earth’s temperatures to rise faster than would happen naturally
during an interglacial period.” As a curious student, I would ask, who decides
the “naturally” parameters of temperature change?
“Are we still in an Ice
Age,” asks another display. The answer is very confusing. “Yes, but… right now
we are in a warming period within an ice age.” The current ice age is called
Pleistocene and its temperatures fluctuate between cooler periods called “glacials”
and warmer periods called “interglacials.” I wonder how many factories and humans were
burning fossil fuels in this Pleistocene ice age that began 2.59 million years
ago?
Another display tells
students that “The glaciers in Montana’s Glacier National Park may be gone by
2030,” that’s a mere 15 years from now. They must run home and tell their
parents and siblings that the Arctic ice is melting so fast that by “2040 or
earlier, the Arctic Ocean may become entirely ice-free in summer. The polar
bears are already affected by sea-ice loss, they are going to drown and starve.
The students don’t know that polar bears are good swimmers, they play on ice
floes, and have increased in numbers five-fold.
“Have you noticed an
increase in storms and other extreme conditions near your hometown?” Students
are not savvy enough to tell the difference between a severe weather event and
climate, they see them as one and the same.
Scared out of their minds,
the students leave the museum with the following advice to bring home, hopefully
influencing their families to take action and read the Ocean Portal website:
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Support renewable
energy such as wind or solar (students don’t know how many billions have been
wasted on 34 bankrupt solar enterprises, how expensive solar energy is , that
it needs fossil fuel energy backup, and the damaging health effects on humans
and birds)
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Use energy-efficient
light bulbs and appliances (students don’t know how toxic the CFL mercury laden
bulbs are when they break)
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Walk, bike, or
take public transportation (not feasible or cost effective in many places)
It seems that the main
stream media and pro-environmental organizations embellish the damage caused by
climate change via “information manipulation and climate agreements.” http://ajae.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/02/24/ajae.aau001.abstract
“You won’t find it
shocking to learn that suppressing inconvenient facts, lying about climate
science and exaggerating tales about natural weather are deliberate strategies
for global warming campaigners.” http://www.cfact.org/2014/04/04/peer-reviewed-paper-its-ok-to-lie-about-climate/
Yet every week, the
Washington Post is running stories and entire sections dedicated to the perils
of climate change. Faced with unusual and sustained cold temperatures,
increased ice surface, the global warming alarmists repackaged their Gaia-worship
as climate change.
A day at the museum for
young and impressionable minds can be a frightening/brainwashing experience/lesson
in global warming/climate change advocacy. It is easy to see how most young
visitors would become life-long stewards/slaves to the religion of Mother
Earth. And if the points were not driven home clearly enough that humans are
destroying the planet with their mere existence and technology, visitors were
urged to make a choice right now because “doing nothing is a choice.” After all
the gloom and doom presented, “It’s not too late to avoid disaster, but we are
running out of time.”
Note: The museum does a great job of pointing out the problems caused by trash pollution.
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