Comment on Museums and Climate Change: A Form-follows-Function Perspective by Emlyn Koster, PhD

As resources for reflection, museum experiences are at their most impactful when, one life at a time, they turn apathy into interest, interest into insight, and insight into action. As soon as public health conditions permit, museum toolkits should add topical conversations to their menu of exhibitions and programs. A tradition in museum offerings, lectures need to be as much about the present and future as the past. Every onsite, online and offsite step towards a grasp of the perils facing environments and societies — which increasingly the sciences and humanities view as inextricably linked — is like adding a fresh droplet to a needed glass of water. New opportunities for each age and stage of learning need to occur alongside new boardroom attitudes, both inside and outside the museum. Although consequential changes in the atmosphere are inseparable from humanity’s adverse impacts on the Earth’s other outer shells, the distinction between weather and climate is a tangible entry point towards scientific literacy for us all. Every now and then, ponder the words conversation and conservation: surely such a small difference should never have amounted to such a big problem!