What to Do When You See Science Denial at the Science Museum

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This is a guest post by Hui Liu of Greenpeace USA. It was originally published atย www.greenpeace.org.

I went to D.C.โ€™s Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History expecting to learn about the history of our planet. Instead, I stumbled upon a Koch-funded climate denialย disaster.

โ€œWith the planet in peril, arts groups can no longer afford the Koch brothersย money.โ€

Thatโ€™s what Washington Post art and culture critic Philip Kennicott wrote in a recent opinion piece about prolific climate denial funders Charles and David Koch. Having recently seen Koch money in action at one of the worldโ€™s most prestigious science museums, I couldnโ€™t agreeย more.

On July 4, 2017, after watching the Independence Day Parade, I went to the Smithsonian’sย Natural History Museum feelingย joyful.

Iโ€™ve visited the museum before, and every time I visit Iโ€™m attracted to all different types of exhibitions โ€” from wildlife specimens to the beautiful gem collection. As a graduate student from China, Iโ€™ve always looked at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History as one of the best museums in theย world.

But this visit was different. As I wandered the museumโ€™s bottom floor, my eyes were drawn to the words โ€œDavid H. Koch Hall of Human Originsโ€ on the wall. Wait, that David Koch? The one famous for his role as an architect of climate science denial?

I decided to take a closer look at the exhibit. The first thing I saw were the faces of ancient humans and skeletons, which made up about half of the exhibit โ€” that much madeย sense.

The other half of the exhibit is focused on how ancient people adapted to the changing environments. Thatโ€™s where things took a shocking turn. As an environmental engineer, Iโ€™m very familiar with the science of climate change. There is no doubt that our climate has changed beyond its natural variability โ€” accelerating since industrialization โ€” and those changes are already affecting ourย planet.

Misleading plaques about climate change in the Koch-funded exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History
Top: Plaque from the Koch-sponsored โ€œHall of Human Originsโ€ Exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Bottom: Misleading depiction of historical climate change from the Koch-sponsored โ€œHall of Human Originsโ€ Exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Credit: Huiย Liu

The Hall of Human Origins tells a very different, and ultimately inaccurate, story. It focuses only on the โ€œgoodโ€ effects of climate change without addressing any of the ways that a warmer planet will make it harder for humans to survive on Earth. Guests learn that dramatic climate change drives human evolution, which apparently means that climate change is good because it makes people more adaptable to theย environment.

This message is essentially what David Koch himself has asserted: โ€œThe Earth will be able to support enormously more people because a far greater land area will be available to produce food [due to globalย warming].โ€

The exhibit has the tendency to exclude anthropogenic climate change from the story of Earthโ€™s climate. Visitors are shown global temperature change from 10 million years ago to today. Presenting climate data in this way is extremely misleading, obscuring the fact that human activity is closely related to the way our climate has changed since the Industrial Revolution. If I took the Smithsonianโ€™s word for it, then I would have the impression that climate change is not really a thing, or at least happens veryย slowly.

The exhibit does mention greenhouse gases, showing dramatic rising carbon dioxide levels from 400,000 years ago to now. But it doesnโ€™t show the correlation between increasing carbon dioxide level and temperature increase over such a large timeย span.

The one accurate portrayal of human-caused climate change in the Smithsonian's Koch-funded exhibit.
The one accurate description of human-driven climate change in the exhibit. Credit: Huiย Liu

Really, there is only one display that makes it clear that human fossil fuel use is changing the globalย climate.

I left the museum full of curiosity and questions. I found that others, too, have noticed this failure accurately portray climate science. This 2015 article from ThinkProgressโ€™ Joe Romm has turned many heads and non-profit organization The Natural History Museum is pushing to kick science meddlers like David Koch off the Smithsonianโ€™s Advisory Board, to name aย few.

And I hope these criticisms make an impact, because the last thing cultural institutions like the Smithsonian need is a biased benefactor. The Smithsonian museum is world renowned โ€” coming from China to see this biased and inaccurate exhibit was extremelyย disappointing.

As a scientist, I knew better than to believe what the Hall of Human Origins is suggesting about the threats of climate change. But the thousands of kids and teenagers that visit the museum every day mayย not.

The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History has the responsibility to be unbiased and evidenced-based โ€” and that means refusing to be a pawn in the Koch-funded crusade against climateย action.

Hui Liu is a research intern at Greenpeace USA and a master’s student in environmental engineering at Dukeย University.

Main image: Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural Historyย Credit:ย Mark Fischer,ย CC BYSAย 2.0

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