Museology of Natural History. Historic Museums And Climate Change - Essay Example

? HISTORIC MUSEUMS AND CLIMATE CHANGE Introduction Climate, Weather, local conditions in temperatures and such elements have been in use to describe variances in climate conditions in a specific region. However, climate change as is a global phenomenon refers to fluctuations of average temperatures across the globe over a specified period. The last recent years have seen a rise in research finding concerning the climate change majorly due to global warming. This issue has posed a dilemma to both scientific fraternities as well as to the social life. This pressing nature of the problem has necessitated the active participation of merely all sectors and institutions of the world towards alleviating the accompanying effects. Environmental organizations in the past have taken a leading role in informing the public, inspiring them as well as equipping them in manners appropriate to participate effectively in the challenge of controlling the climate change. This is because most of the recent findings point to human beings as being the main cause to the climatic change because of activities that lead to build up of green houses gases within the atmosphere. Burning of fossil fuels as well as deforestation has been majorly blamed on increasing the green house gases, which lead to global warming and in effect lead to the adverse effects that are seen from climate change and alteration of climate systems globally. However, lack of information by many people lead to the low participation towards curtailing the effects of climate change. Nevertheless, the active participation of all human beings towards the problem necessitates that they are equally involved in finding the solution to the problem. Public awareness of the effects of personal activities towards rising levels of concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as well as other environmentally unfriendly activities would play a great role in the efforts to contain climate change across the globe. This is the active role that most of the museums (not all) are currently engaged in with efforts towards alleviating the effects of climate change. Discussion Despite the active participation and the evident efforts by many world governments to educate the citizens concerning the problem, much is still to be done. This has therefore necessitated the active participation of nongovernmental organizations, scientific agencies and other institutions towards the common goal of environmental conservation with a motive of alleviating the effects of climate change. In particular, such active participation has been seen in the recent past from the historical museums across the globe. Most of the museums are taking active role in educating the public on such emerging issues in a timely way. There is growing evidence of scientific museums actively participating in empowering the public alongside other agencies such as environmental organizations through information in efforts to control climate change and hence the effects (Ryan, 2005, p. 4-5). The nineteenth century saw great revolution in creation of public awareness by scientific expositions as well as world fairs, which would later trigger active participation of the historical museums into the good course. The growing sense of responsibility over the time slowly led to the strategic moves by museums to participate actively in controlling the menace. The process of adopting the role of educating the populace concerning global warming and effects by the museums have seen development of educational theories as well as visitor research. The outcome of such efforts has been seen in development and adoption of conservation related exhibitions, which has been very instrumental in creating public awareness on the topic (Ryan, 2005, p. 23). Museums role as custodians of rich history not only safeguards the history but also enables there to be a link between the past, the present as well as the future. Sustainability has therefore shaped many of the efforts by the museums as defined by the MA ethics code. Under such, the museums assume critical responsibility in safeguarding the history for the sake of current and coming generations through efforts in sustainability. Besides social sustainability as well as economic sustainability, museums assume active participation in environmental sustainability through such efforts that look into climate change. Future welfare of the populations as well as the planet at large forms a basic concern to every day service of museums. However, not all world museums take the active role in efforts towards ensuring environmental sustainability and climate change as observed by Davies and Wilkinson, (nd, p. 4). Modern day museums are increasingly and characteristically occupying high-powered housing structures with all efforts directed towards tightly controlled environments and conditions. In fact, most are seen to crave for more new collections with total destruction of old collections without considering reuse and or recycling. In fact, few museums show efforts of long term planning which would be instrumental in projecting plans for climate policies and frameworks. The report therefore shows that despite great efforts by some museums to participate actively in environmental sustainability efforts, many museums are yet to take active participation in addressing climate change and global warming as direct cause. History museums have been credited with preserving great wealth in specimens, which are useful in explaining how life was on the planet before the climate change as well has it today. Research collections within these museums form a rich place where essential information concerning past as well as present distribution of living things. Climate change has been seen to influence the distribution structures of living things and as such, such information as provided by museums would serve greatly in education human beings of the role to play in controlling climate change. Despite the existence of this rich history and information, effective mechanisms of presenting the information to the public by history museums present a critical shortcoming. There lacks effective forecasting models that would be effective in showing people the possible effects of their actions which are often blamed on the increased global warming which subsequently lead to climatic change. Moreover, the history museums have a strategic role to play in keeping custody the relevant historical details, which would be effective in enlightening the public concerning climate change through the visual exhibitions being, sought (Irving and Hamilton, 2009, p. 69). Museums are leading among other cultural institutions is the advocacy on environmental sustainability and climate change control. Besides forming a very important link between people and politic al policy formulating agencies in Australia and US, historic museums together with scientific research institutes contributes effectively in awareness creation through providing the most needed information. Through the research findings and other collected exhibition, materials, museum visitors increasingly express their confidence in the institutions in playing active role in campaigning against disastrous effects of climate change from global warming. Policy formulation by the government plays an important role in efforts towards environmental conservation as well as in influencing human acts, which are blamed on fueling global warming. However, the effective formulation and imposition of the policies towards the population is dependent on availability of information, not only to the policy makers but also to the public. The historic museums in collaboration with scientific agencies are widely acknowledged in playing a critical role in production and storage of the information. Moreover, the museums are strategically placed in disseminating the information to the public especially to the visitors who tour the museums. Cameron and Deslandes studied the strategic role that museums have in regard to democratic participation in the debates over climate change. Among other findings that the study revealed, visitors are expectant on finding more information on climate change within museums as against common perceptions of the museum being just historical sites. The study showed that people are in need of education concerning the role played in contributing to rise in concentration of green house gases, the effects of these gases and how they could be avoided. Moreover, people are increasingly interested in understanding ways of mitigation and controlling the effects of climate change in personal lives as well as in modern day lifestyles. Respondent groups revealed that museums are expected to play a leading role in disclosing the research findings concerning climate change across the globe (Cameron and Deslandes, 2011, p. 137). There are great revolutions in museum managements across the globe today where such practices as ‘green’ museums are easily taking shape. The crisis in environment has necessitated the efforts where museums are adopting and incorporating sustainable practices in management practices. There are emergent institutions within the historic museums, which are advocating for eco-friendly practices, green business practices as well as sustainable programs of education. Conservation of natural habitats and the endangered species of animals worldwide prompted the adoption of the green management practices by such departments of historic museums as the zoology departments. Many of the museums across the globe have adopted the green exhibitions as tools for communicating content as well as design. They are utilized to communicate sustainability concerning natural environment, the ways the nature is used by human beings as well as conservations (Byers, 2008, p. 55-57). The ICOM (international council of museums) statutes, a museum is a permanent institution which serves the public at no profit, conserves, researches and communicated to the public the research findings that are revolving the human heritage as well as the environmental concerns. This definition shows a shift from the original expectation or perception of a museum as being only a custodian to historical heritage to research and exhibition roles. Moreover, the historic museums have adopted a new dimension in the modern world unlike the previous perception that it is a static building, which harbors historic specimen. The modern historic museums brings about the interaction aspect has been introduced to bring about great dimensions concerning the roles of education and advocacy in regard to such emerging issues as the climate change and environmental conservation. Public outreach efforts by such museums have been greatly acknowledged about awareness creation and educative programs, which empower the populations to face life real issues such as global warming and climate change. Scientific work has been shown to be crucial in understanding management practices for biodiversity. The historic museums therefore play some very fundamental roles in the effort of management of biodiversities. They serve to preserve and avail historical specimens, which are required for scientific studies. There provide accompanying information necessary for comparison between the modern day species and the past species. They provide opportunities where the populations are directly engaged in debates and contributions towards behavioral changes. Finally and more important to the discussion is the capacity of the museums play a very critical role in capacity building, training as well as partnerships through which the public can actively participate in emerging and current issues in environmental challenges (Piqueras, Guerrero and Omedes, 2012, p. 85). Despite the fact that the topic of climate change and environmental conservation has been widely and extensively discussed in various platforms, few history museums have the record of actively participating in outstanding efforts to the efforts. However, the CU museum (University of Colorado museum of natural history) has strategically stood out in its efforts towards engaging the public through information in matters of environmental activities and climate change discussions. The museum has been very active in engaging the populations within the nation and at international level with the Green movement. The CU museum is strategically taking the lead in displaying scientific viewpoints regarding climate change and environment sustainability. The focus noted by the efforts of the institution is to educate populations on the best and appropriate lifestyles to adopt with sensitivity to effects towards the environment and climate at large. Through educational exhibitions targeting public audiences, the institution has been commended in making great moves towards controlling adverse effects of global warming to the climate through proper lifestyles (Kageyama, nd, p. 212), . The foregoing discussion strategically places historic museums in a position to participate actively towards alleviating the effects of climate change on the planet. Research support the efforts of some museums to embrace specialized practices for exhibition of climate change through global warming which stems majorly from the activities of human beings. It has also been shown through scientific research that increasing burning of fossil fuels by human beings for energy and also emission of green house gases have contributed greatly towards escalating global warming. Museum studies have revealed that climate change is responsible in threatening the lives of particular species of living things and the subsequent evolution to the existing species. Natural habitats of living things on the planet are the first targets to climate change and this threatens to distort the rich history that currently exists. This has therefore prompted the history museums to collaborate with other research agencies such as environmental agencies to step up the campaigns and awareness creation towards the populations on active participation towards controlling the effects of global warming and climate change. However, critics still cite existing gaps from the efforts by the museums in realizing efficiency in the efforts towards educating the public on climate change. The efforts have not been fully adopted by some of the museums and as such, efficiency cannot be fully recognized. Technological advancement in the modern day living can be an effective tool to be exploited in order to make the efforts by museums to educate the populations on the strategic role in controlling climate change. Strategically, a gap exists between the rich information that is stored by museums and the information that is made available to the public through such means as technological platforms. Internet would be cited as most efficient in sharing of information from one museum to another and from the museums and the populations. There are slowed efforts in converting the available information into formats that could be easily exhibited and shared through the internet or other digital formats. Many of the institutions, to have technical expertise and manual labor to transform the information into the desired form, blame the slow pace on little investments. The transformation would not only make the work of educating people easy for the museums but it also increases the opportunities of people interacting with the information unlike just waiting for the time to visit the museum. Conclusion In conclusion, increased awareness by the museum would be very instrumental in the fight against rising concerns of global warming as well as subsequent effects towards climate change. People reveal their increased expectation of such information from the historical museums and this shows the gap that exists between the population expectations and the actual delivery by the museums. This paper therefore confirms that there are efforts that have been notable from the historic museums towards educating the populations concerning global warming and climate change. However, the efforts have been criticized on slowness and inadequacy to produce the intended effects. Much is expected from the museums, which are strategically placed in having capacity to educate millions of people who tour them. Besides, the collaboration by museums with other environmental conservation agencies and governments is postulated to have very positive effects towards the course of creating public awareness s on environment conservation for climate control. They can participate actively towards policy formulation towards alleviating the effects of climate change across the globe. This therefore shows that much is what remains to be done by the historic museums concerning public awareness regarding climate change. Bibliography Byers A. 2008. Green museums, green exhibits. Communicating sustainability content +design. p. 55-57. Available at: https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/8260/Byers_fall2008_project.pdf> (Accessed on 20 September 2013) Cameron F. and Deslandes A. 2011. Museums and science centers as sites for deliberative democracy on climate change. Museum and society, 9(2), p. 136-153 Davies M. and Wilkinson H. nd. Sustainability and museums; Your chance to make a difference. p. 4 Available at: < http://www.museumsassociation.org/download?id=16398> (Accessed on 20 September 2013) Kageyama M., nd. Coping with climate change and biodiversity. p. 212. Available at: < http://www.academia.edu/1293320/Coping_with_climate_change_and_biodiversity_loss_Activities_at_the_University_of_Colorado_Musuem_of_Natural_History > (Accessed on 20 September 2013) Irving L. and Hamilton H. 2009. Forecasting the Effects of Climate Change on Biodiversity: Visualizing Change to Inspire Public Action. State of Climate Visualization, CSPR-report 2009:4. Available at: < http://research.calacademy.org/sites/research.calacademy.org/files/Departments/cabi/Irving%26HamiltonCSPRReport09.pdf> (Accessed on 20 September 2013) Piqueras M., Guerrero R. and Omedes A. 2012. The Museu Blau, a natural history museum for the 21st century. Contributions to science, 8(1), 85–9 Ryan S. E. 2005. Promoting environmental stewardship through exhibitions: the challenges of representing global warming in science museums. p. 4-5. Available at: < http://www.aspacnet.org/apec/case_studies/_pdfs/ryan_thesis_july06.pdf> (Accessed on 20 September 2013) Read More