Culture & Climate

Aloha and mahalo nui loa (Hawaiian for "thank you very much") for clicking this link and following this blog. 

The Sustainable Museums website and blog have moved. Now you'll find the website here, and the blog at Culture & Climate. 

I hope you'll keep following, and bring along some friends -- this movement needs us all. 

Mahalo for what you do and help others to do. 

Sarah

Pacific Risk Management Conference: Relevance for Cultural Institutions

When a climate-driven flood, storm, or fire roars into your community, nearly everyone is affected. Pre-planning a response helps anyone or anything survive, recover from, and then thrive after the event. That's called resilience.

With so much more risk and damage around us, everyone will have to help, not just the first-responders, the waste haulers, and the construction crews.

Last week I attended the Pacific Risk Management 'Ohana (family/group) known as PRiMO to find connections among cultural institutions sector and the risk and disaster management sector. There is so much room for zoos, aquariums, museums of all kinds to work with our communities to help manage the increasingly frequent crises. I didn't find much happening, yet, but I did find terrific willingness among NOAA scientists, emergency communications specialists, community managers, and product developers to work with the cultural sector. They don't like disasters any more than we do! They too want to help the public understand the science of climate change, plan better for themselves, and make changes that will reduce risk and increase resilience.

So, if you had to deal with a present or future natural disaster in your community, what would your museum, zoo, garden or historic site do to help? If your community were in recovery mode, what could you do?

Short term: Could

• your site be an accessible gathering spaces for preparation planning and staging, for professionals to host at-risk populations, and to provide services or staging during recovery?
• you allow your empty parking lots be the staging site for power company equipment or emergency communication vehicles? 

Post-disaster: Could 

• your staff collect stories and oral histories from the community, then plan to share the stories of resilience and recovery in your community while memorializing losses and achievements?
• your collections provide the information for restoring what has been lost?
• your zoo and aquarium plan to care for a certain number of injured animals, and plan to relocate others suitably?

NOAA has a great resource Digital Coast with instructions to 3-D print your own coral polyp modules
You can made them sensitive to a warming ocean and watch them bleach!

Long term: Could 

• your aquarium be part of the process of educating people to protect coral reefs while rebuilding a living, resilient coral reef to protect your shores against rising seas and storm surges?
• your historical records help explore potential impacts and better solutions for the future?
• you educate the public about the science of safe drinking water and how to protect themselves after an event...maybe explain how MadiDrops work...
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  https://www.madidrop.com/how-it-works/

There's no limit the the relevant topics your museum, garden, aquarium, zoo or historic site can interpret. And there is so much your physical plant can provide to support the resilience effort.

Please join the disaster planning conversations in your community. Help each other!

Announcing Successful NEH Sustaining Cultural Heritage Collections Proposal

I am delighted to share that last week, when the National Endowment for the Humanities announced $43.1 million in funding for 214 humanities projects nationwide, Saint Peter's Lutheran Church in New York City was awarded $350,000 as one of 14 grants under the Endowment's Sustaining Cultural Heritage program. Nevelson Chapel, From Entry to Cross of the Good Shepherd To prepare the proposal I worked with the Church staff members Jennifer Eberhart Powell, facilities manager Sam Hutcheson, and Pastor Jared Stahler. I also worked with the project art conservator Sarah Nunberg who is my co-PI on an NEH Research Grant on Life Cycle Assessment in sustainable collections care through the American Institute for the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. We developed an holistic approach to improved climate conditions and room construction to find a safer way to present, preserve, and protect the Nevelson Chapel and its artwork as it is restored. I will join that planning team for implementation for 2018-2019. When announcing the award, Pastor Amadus J. Derr wrote this to his parishioners and supporters:

Thanks is due in particular to our Project Managers: Debra Inwald with Christine Wahba and Jigme Pokwal of Works-in-Progress Associates. Debra, Christine and Jigme not only kept design of the project moving along, but were instrumental in ensuring and multidisciplinary environmental upgrade team submitted materials required by the grant application on time. The NEH's award is high praise for the work of Sarah Nunberg, our conservator, and this remarkable team:  Jane Greenwood with Jamie Downie and Marian Prado of Kostow Greenwood Architects; Michael Ambrosino of ADS Engineers;  Michael Henry of Watson & Henry Associates;  Ryoko Nakamura of LOOP Lighting;  Dominick Pilla and Elise Martos of Dominick R. Pilla Structural Engineer Associates;  Stephen Short of Lite-Trol Lighting Control Service;  Sarah Sutton of Sustainable Museums He gave particular thanks to the champion for the project, a man whose passion for the history and setting of this cultural icon made all the difference: Pastor Jared R. Stahler, whose organizing and administrative skills and unwavering passion for this project have played the major role in the success of these grant applications. [The project has also received significant support from the Henry Luce Foundation.] What a pleasure it is to work with an inspired team of passionate cultural professionals: climate and culture on the same team.  If you are on Lexington Street in New York City, in the vicinity of the old Citicorp Tower before work begins in mid-October, please stop in to the church, and sit and visit with the sculptural installation that is this remarkable gem of chapel in the hidden in the heart of the City. Press Release: Nevelson Chapel is the artist’s only remaining complete environment always open to the public. Restoration of this New York City treasure hidden in plain sight will conserve an important piece of cultural heritage for the future and secure Nevelson’s legacy as one of the most influential and celebrated sculptors of the 20th century.

Raise Awareness; Boost Contagion; Count on Disaster.

Have you read In Defense of Food? Do you know American author Michael Pollan and his role in the healthy food movement?  Pollan very simply and effectively describes his approach to the complex problem of changing to healthier, more sustainable food choices in seven words: “Eat Food, Mostly Plants, Not Too Much.”

To shape my own practice, I developed a similar mantra as an organizing structure for moving us forward. The first two parts are simple statements based on research-based conclusions. The final flourish is just plain reality:  

Raise Awareness; Boost Contagion 

Count On Disaster

Raise Awareness

Humans respond to issues relatable to their current or desired situation. They need an opportunity to see how the issue affects them in a way that matters, and to imagine achievable, acceptable actions to create change.

Boost Contagion

To catch on, new ways often need a boost. Composting, generating energy, choosing alternative packaging and products must become the choice for more of us, but the change can be slow. Trends, legal compliance, incentivized choices, even opt-out instead of opt-in choices, are ways to boost contagion of a new behavior.   

For creating change, when all else fails, we can Count on Disaster. 

The"Disaster" can be costly mandates, changed regulations, or climate-related events. The force will trigger change where awareness and social signals have not. Only after a serious and damaging storm event, with the ever-present nuisance of rising daily tides, is there change in a coastal community. Urgency and focus appear with a new law, an extended heat wave, or cold snap.

In our climate work, let's use awareness-raising (through knowledge, skill-building, and conservation communication), and positive contagion (shared learning, responsible standards, cooperative solutions) to build a climate movement among cultural institutions and their audiences. The goal is to create our own change, not to let disaster do it for us. 

Let's learn how to best do the work to mitigate and avoid damage to our communities and the world around us.

We Are Still In News & Upcoming Calls July/August

The good news just keeps on coming about We Are Still In and the cultural institutions sector.  In the last two weeks

• The Southeastern Museums Conference board voted to sign on to We Are Still In.
• Then the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum here on Oahu signed on as well. 
• We have our first zoo: welcome to Nashville Zoo! 
• And the American Association for State and Local History has joined as well. It is incredibly important to have the leader in the heritage sector make this statement.

Everyone who is part of this effort to build cultural institution support for the values of the Paris Agreement is so heartened to see this. 

Individual institutions and associations from national to the state level are considering the value and opportunities afforded by collaboration, and are ready to explore how to be a part of this sea change in community connections by zoos, gardens, historic sites, museums and aquariums.

To help others consider these options, the volunteers at AAM's Environment & Climate Network have set up a series of calls. I look forward to speaking with you - and I hope it's soon.

Here are the dates. Please note that, though these times are all Eastern, they're staggered to provide comfortable times across the regions - including Hawai'i. 


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Wednesday, July 25	6pm (EST)
Thursday, July 26	1pm (EST)
Wednesday, August 1	6pm (EST)
Wednesday, August 8	12pm (EST)
Wednesday, August 15	6pm (EST)
Wednesday, August 22	12pm (EST)

 Wednesday, August 29   12pm (EST)

Each call uses this link. If you'd like to call in instead, here are the numbers:

iPhone one-tap:

US: +14086380986,,2523448288# or +16465588665,,2523448288#

Telephone: Dial (for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location): US: +1 408 638 0986 or +1 646 558 8665 AND Meeting ID: 252 344 8288

More News: We Are Still In, the Cultural Sector

If the last week of June was busy, now, with the holiday over, the We Are Still In action is heating up again.

Vizcaya Museum & Gardens signed on - a heritage site dealing with significant impacts of sea level rise on the Florida coast. They're experiences are important for us all to understand. How can we help them; how does their experience prepare others?

Then the Museums Association of Arizona signed on as our first association signatory and first state museum association signatory. Janice Klein attended an online session, then made an excellent case to her board. They are in!

Tomorrow is another chance to  listen and ask questions.  It's noon EST. Just follow that link.

There are similar live webinars every week this summer, and we'll be archiving copies. We're trying to make it easy for you to learn, have your questions answered, and then join your peers. They're interested in working across sectors to help create solutions, and participating in or hosting environment and climate discussions not just with visitors, but also in their communities. It's not about what you're doing now, it's about what you want to start doing.

Meanwhile, the We Are Still In Steering Committee is sending invites to our Forum on September 11th at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, but you have to be part of We Are Still In to participate. The Field Museum and New England Aquarium committed immediately to participating. Museums, gardens, aquariums and historic sites will be able to send a valuable message during the Summit.

It's just incredible to experience. We are showing the world that the significant abilities, resources, and influence of our sector can help address our greatest social, scientific, and economic challenge ever: climate change. Without the volunteers of AAM's Environment & Climate Network, Stephanie, Emily, Carter, Holly, Roger, and Pat, this would not be possible.

So, will you listen in to our calls, or have a private one with me? Will you go to the website yourself? www.wearestillin.com

Then will you sign on and help us tell the world that America is Still In the Paris Agreement because we care about our World?   'Cause we do. 

We Are Still In

Out of the blue, a new Ransom Note From the Future!

It's been an important week.

AAM's Environment & Climate Network announced it's name-change, one that moves from sustainability to addressing climate as well.

The Network hosted two webinars introducing the Cultural Institutions sector of We Are Still In to individual institutions and to membership networks.

There were private calls and emails with interested organizations to help them sign on.

We were asked to send copies of the recordings and slide decks to some who were unable to attend.

So we scheduled extra calls for July (11, 18 & 26).

Then New England Aquarium signed on.

Meanwhile, Museum magazine came out chock full of sustainability articles, and leading with AAM's Laura Mott's endorsement of We Are Still In for cultural institutions: "I encourage you to consider joining them and take the "We Are Still In" pledge this summer," she wrote.

Then a regional museum association said it was interested in signing on, too.

Meanwhile, the We Are Still In Steering Committee met to talk about the run up to the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco this fall. The list of museums, zoos, gardens, aquariums and historic sites is growing, and growing enough to send a valuable message during the Summit.

It's been a stunning week, long in the making, hard to wait for, and just incredible to experience. We are showing the world that the significant abilities, resources, and influence of our sector can help address our greatest social, scientific, and economic challenge ever: climate change.

So, will you listen in to our calls, or have a private one with me? Will you go to the website yourself? www.wearestillin.com Then will you sign on and help us tell the world that America is Still In the Paris Agreement because we care about our World? 'Cause we do. 

Museums & UN Sustainable Development Goals: IV #1, #13, #15, #17 on Oahu

This post is a call to action for Honolulu's museums to work together on community resilience to climate impacts, and to provide an example for peers in other cities, especially in the 100 Resilient Cities. 

When the world around us changes profoundly, culture and community are our best resources as we work to adapt and thrive. The recent flooding in the islands has brought as many stories of generous assistance and sacrifice as they have of tragedy. This is common in a disaster: the most prevalent summary of the disaster experience is how community came together in unanticipated ways.

We need not wait for a crisis to connect more deeply with community; there are ways to prepare our communities so that they experience less damage, and the people feel their common strength and more agency in creating the safe future they deserve. Resilience planning, particularly with the support of cultural institutions, is a valuable way to do that. If we leave it to government alone, then we will not be able to shape the result as much as we desire. Certainly, the work is too wide-ranging, too detailed, too important to leave to one authority. We must share the authority and responsibility.

I urge Hawaii’s charitable institutions, particularly those with an emphasis on arts and humanities, and science and technology, to take the lead in hosting resilience discussions around the state. Our institutions are more trusted than government, other nonprofits, and even credible news outlets (Dillenschneider, 2017). Our sites are familiar and welcoming locations for important, potentially challenging discussions. Our staff and collections have many of the intellectual resources and professional connections to inform these discussions and to educate participants on the science and history that can guide us in finding new solutions. Museums and similar institutions can take the lead in bringing together emergency and public office planners, and residents so we can co-create a stronger, thriving future.

(c) Sarah Sutton 2018

We find culture in our family and neighborly traditions and habits, in our community history and present-day efforts, and in the histories and stories of the land, sea, and people. We find community wherever we look on our islands. I commend the Bishop Museum for its resilience planning session during March, and the Resilient Oahu staff for its willingness to work with cultural institutions to contribute to the island’s resilience plan. Let’s expand that work.

Strawbery Banke Museum is facilitating community discussion on response to nuisance tides and sea level rise in Portsmouth, NH, where its neighbors also own and worry about historic structures. The Annapolis Historical Commission, MD, is leading the country in addressing nuisance tides and sea level rise in historic economic districts.

What conversations does your community need around resilience? How can your institution make these happen? Use the materials provided, for free, on the websites of the National Institution Standards and Technology (complex), and the National Park Service (much more accessible) to plan your resilience study and response. Ask your local cultural institution to host and help design those talks with government and emergency planners, college and university staff, business owners, architects and landscape designers, scientists and heritage practitioners. Work with the City & County of Honolulu Office on Climate Change, Resilience and Sustainability.

This is our home; if we wish it to shelter and nurture us, we must help it to do so.   

Sarah Sutton is principal of Sustainable Museums, a Waialua-based consultancy helping museums, zoos, aquariums, gardens, and historic sites become more environmentally sustainable and work with their communities to become more resilient to the changing climate. She spoke at the Hawaii Museums Association’s conference May 4^th and will be speaking on July 11^th  in ‘Iolani Palace’s Nā Mo'olelo Lecture Series , both in Honolulu. 

Museums & UN Sustainable Development Goals: III #11 & #17 Strawbery Banke Museum and Sea Level Rise

I've invited a guest post by Rodney D. Rowland at Strawbery Banke Museum. His story of how the museum works with City of Portsmouth, NH, to address Sea Level Rise impact is an important example of the vulnerability assessment process, and the special value of museums in that process for advancing the science of understanding, and the special role of museums in community engagement for planning. 

The museum sits at the lowest point in the City.

Strawbery Banke Museum is located 400 feet from the banks of the Piscataqua River, in downtown Portsmouth NH. It is a nine-acre living history museum that maintains 37 historic houses, most on their original foundations. In keeping with its commitment for Strawbery Banke to be “a place to learn, a place to gather and a sustainable resource for the community,” the museum has adopted specific “green” initiatives in its most recent Strategic and Long-Range Plans. From adopting ‘zero waste’ practices at signature events to selecting a higher-efficiency chiller for the seasonal ice rink, Strawbery Banke considers environmentally-friendly practices good for the health of the planet and the museum.

Toward that end, Strawbery Banke is now collaborating with the City of Portsmouth as a case study in identifying and mitigating the impact of sea level rise on the waterfront and on ground water. One house, the Shapley Drisco House (yellow building in the photo), was built in 1795 along what was a tidal inlet called Puddle Dock.  The inlet was filled in in circa 1905. This building serves an important interpretive “Change Over Time” message for the museum, showing two time periods (1795 and 1955) in furnished spaces on the first floor. The building is also an important income-producing site for the museum for its rented commercial space on the second floor.

For over a decade the house and contents have experienced accelerated deterioration due to salt water infiltration during, originally, storm surge and, now, astronomically high tide or King Tides. The increased rate of infiltration is due to a rise in overall sea level.  During tidal events from December 2017 through March 2018, 16 to 27 inches of salt water was observed in the basement. [Sarah's note: see the fantastic time lapse video here.]

Mechanic Street, one block from the museum,  during a King Tide.

Seeking a solution to this increasing threat to Strawbery Banke and other low-lying properties in the neighborhood, the City of Portsmouth invited the museum to join in its Local Advisory Committee (LAC) for the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment on Historic Portsmouth. Using data and maps created during the Coastal Resilience Initiative, the LAC undertook the process of evaluating parts of the City most vulnerable to sea level rise and storm surge with the objective of selecting test sites to model mitigation strategies. Every property in the high risk area was given am historic value, a cultural value, and a monetary value. Strawbery Banke, with some of the most historic and well-preserved houses, and 90,000 annual visitors, and assessed property value, achieved a score in the top tier for all three. All of the evaluated at-risk areas were included on the City’s storyboard. As mitigation strategies are fully-vetted they will be include at this site for the community to follow. 

As this partnership continues to grow, other organizations are coming forward to talk about what they are doing in the area of climate change. In March 2018, the museum hosted a summit with 12 other state organizations to share ideas and research, alongside Strawbery Banke and the City. It is these community wide partnerships that will help create the best solutions. Spread the word, share your stories, and make sure you are at your Climate Change Assessment table!

Rodney Rowland, Director of Special Projects and Facilities, volunteered for Strawbery Banke first in 1976. He is currently responsible for the historic properties on the site, overseeing the properties and restoration department and is project manager for various projects.  After graduating from Lake Forest College with a B.A. in history, Rodney interned with the museum, then joined the museum staff in 1990, as curatorial assistant working with the Curator on new exhibits and processing the decorative arts collection.  He later became Collections Manager and was lead objects conservator for the 1943 Little Corner Store project.  In 2004, Rodney was promoted to manage the construction of the TYCO Visitors Center (2005) and the Carter Collections Center (2008).  603-422-7525, rrowland@strawberybanke.org

Museums & UN Sustainable Development Goals: II #MuseumsforParis and We Are Still In, #17 a partnership for the UNSDGs

(C) Sarah Sutton 2017

On Earth Day, April 22nd, the World Wildlife Fund and its many partners making up We Are Still In will announce a new sector of contributing non-state actors in support of the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals: Cultural Institutions.

Last June, on the day President Trump announced the planned withdrawal of the United States from that critical agreement, I created #MuseumsforParis to align the individual efforts of museums, zoos, aquariums, gardens, and historic sites in support of public education and engagement around sustainability and climate change action, and to promote and expand operational efforts to reduce negative impacts and even become climate positive.

Recognizing that added value and power would come through its collective abilities and performance in partnership with other sectors, I looked for a way to leverage our field's public engagement impacts and our operational commitments for the good of the planet and all its living beings. We Are Still In is that opportunity.

Early signatories in the Cultural Institution sector include open air history museums, children's museums, science centers, aquariums, and gardens. They agree that regardless of political alignment or federal government practice, as part of this sector they have a responsibility to their mission and communities to contribute to the upholding of the US agreement.

In the coming months each will learn how to name a set of institutional goals and approaches to supporting that work.

• This may be energy use reduction in operations and transportation to cut Greenhouse Gas contributions. 
• It may be participating in a community risk assessment to understand and manage climate vulnerabilities in partnership with residents, emergency planners, and government. 
• Or they may wish to learn how to shift to socially-responsible investing in the next few years. 

Every institution and every commitment is welcome and so very important to creating the change needed for a healthy planet and healthy communities.

In the next three months Sustainable Museums will provide a series of webinars introducing new and potential signatories to this work, and helping them develop the goals and pathways needed to move forward. I hope you will join us in this work and encourage your peers to do so as well.

It's your mission; what will you do with it?

You can reach me at sarah@sustainablemuseums.net and 978-505-4515 to discuss this further. All questions welcome.You can sign up now via the www.wearestillin.org website.

I look forward to meeting you there.

Book Review: Public Archaeology and Climate Change

Public Archaeology & Climate Change 

Edited by Tom Dawson, Courtney Nimura; Elías López-Romero; and Marie-Yvane Daire         Oxbow Books:  Barnsley, ENG, 2017 

What a relief it is to read a hopeful book about climate change response; and even more so when it shows the exciting ways cultural heritage professionals are using science and the humanities to build new knowledge for managing heritage resources around the globe.

Public Archaeology & Climate Change is a collection of essays by professionals addressing the decisions we have come to know as “advance the line, hold the line, retreat the line, or do nothing” (Cooper, et al. 2007). The authors and their colleagues are researching and testing how we professionals will be able to make informed choices about which actions to recommend. They don’t pretend to have all the answers, but they have many more to offer than our field has been able to muster previously. And the authors don’t only speak Archaeology.

These eighteen essays are clearly-written, and very accessible to non-professionals. They also provide important and reliable examples for other professionals advancing research in the management of archaeological sites threated by the impacts of a changing climate on sites within the world’s ice packs and the line of wildfires, and in its coastal zones.

The text starts with excellent overviews of the challenges of climate change to cultural heritage sites worldwide. The examples in the sixteen following essays address both sides of our protection challenge: how to create the most effective tools for assessing vulnerability, documenting change, and planning responses; and how to raise awareness among visitors and galvanize citizen scientists in a shared mission of caring for these heritage resources.   

The essays present work, in no particular order, in Great Britain, Ireland, France, the United States, the Lesser Antilles, Iberia, Uruguay, Japan, France, Australia, Iceland, and Greenland. This variety of locations provides lessons in understanding regional climate-change issues and the varying climate impacts around the world.

The projects address assessment and monitoring of a variety of sites; indigenous knowledge in resource management; citizen science and participation in identifying, monitoring and protecting sites; use of humanities resources to understand comparative impacts of climate change historically and today, including the accelerating rates of degradation; developing new protection policies; and using tested conservation communication techniques to develop climate stories to raise awareness among visitors to cultural heritage sites.

There are too many bright lights to list here. I can say that there are enough that I commend this book to you for the excellent academic advancement it offers the field. I can also say that I have put it into my teaching syllabus for the graduate class I lead on the social relevance of environmental sustainability and climate change in museums.

I commend to you, in Chapter two, along with an important overview of the history of climate heritage work, the summaries of the eight most relevant recommendations (of 18) described in the 2016 UNESCO report on climate impacts and World Heritage sites. The recommendations were produced by the United Nations Environment Program and the Union of Concerned Sciences, with collaboration from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and US-International Council on Monuments and Sites.

Chapter four on “Improving Management Responses to Coastal Change: utilizing sources form archaeology, maps, charts, photographs and art” is incredibly valuable to any historian or cultural resource manager struggling to either find data to demonstrate change, or to illustrate the relevance of historical collections to understanding and explaining climate change impacts.  

For those exploring effective ways to communicate climate change with visitors, Chapter 12 is a must-read. “Every place has a climate story: finding and sharing climate change stories with cultural heritage” describes the why and how of the National Park Services work to establish a method of communicating climate change stories that is adaptable for any part, climate story, and listener. The particular value here is the reminder to meet the learner where they are, and to use the myriad of storytelling resources at hand depending upon the interests of the learner and the history of this site.

But each essay is an important read. The story of Scotland's Coastal Heritage at Risk Project is an ideal example of community collaboration from citizens to government to record sites, update information on them, and to help prioritize action. The balance of authors offer similarly important examples of cooperative engagement as they describe ice patch archaeology, rescue archaeology, survey programs among cooperating universities, collaboration with tribal communities. They are a marvelous array of ways public archaeology and climate change response is producing new knowledge in the face of potential disaster.

Public Archaeology& Climate Change is a very important contribution to our field because it offers practitioners encouragement and inspiration as they race climate change to identify, record, and understand impacts on cultural heritage sites, and then to a respond to those threats and impacts.

Tweetchat Invitation: Building on Museum 2040

Courtesy, Sarah Sutton 2017

Would you like to follow a discussion on Museums 2040, and a scenario "A New Equilibrium"? How about specifically the exploration of museums' response to climate change effects? Then please join a Tweetchat On March 29th, 3pm EST.

The event is hosted by the Center for the Future of Museums' Elizabeth Merritt, with a few of the authors from the Museum 2040 issue chiming in on their topics.

I'll be there, and this is the stream you can explore, and work off of, for Climate:

Q4: @sarahsutton’s article in Museum 2040 sees a future in which museums are major influencers when it comes to climate resilient. What real-life museums are already helping their communities plan how they will adapt to climate change?

Example A4: The @museumofnaz devoted several of their Future of the Colorado Plateau Forums to community discussions of climate change, including water needs and impact on tourism and recreation.

The focus is museums in 2040, so the chat is not just about Climate, but also museums' roles in addressing truth and reconciliation, new governance approaches, and potential hybrid designs of institutional formats. 

Bring your ideas, questions, and open mind as we chat about the future. 

The link above provides a format for the discussion, some background, and, if you haven't participated in a Tweetchat before, or used Twitter, instructions for joining the conversation.

See you in 2040!

The Kresge Foundation and Adaptation - What it Says for Museums

Earlier this year The Kresge Foundation published Rising to the Challenge, Together: A Review and Critical Assessment of the US Climate Adaptation Field.

It is incredibly valuable. It is a snapshot of the field of climate adaptation as a developing practice, and provides a description of what it must become to effect change.

It is so well-written and researched that anything other than sharing it directly would diminish it considerably. The material in blue, below, is taken directly from the report - but I have selected the pieces that align most specifically with the mission of museums in their communities. These are excerpts I believe reflect the current state of adaptation in the museum field, and a vision of what we can aspire to – in practice and in professional expectations.

Current Conditions

Profession

• Despite some progress, practice is not yet advanced to implementation except in limited circumstances.

• Incremental progress in adaptation does not match the accelerating pace of climate change.

• Awareness, understanding, and acceptance of the need for transformative change is present among some, but extremely limited across the field as a whole.

Practice

• Tools supporting adaptation are increasingly available, but remain difficult to select and use.

• The field is experimenting widely, but not yet discerning best practices.

• Practice is advancing, but barriers stymie progress from planning to action.

Vision

Profession

• It understands its mission as preventing, minimizing, and alleviating climate change threats to human well-being and to the natural and built systems on which humans depend.

• It works to create new opportunities by addressing the causes and consequences of climate change in ways that solve related social, environmental, and economic problems.

Practice

• Rigorous professional standards and certification are established, based on guiding principles that can be applied to diverse contexts.

• The field facilitates social networking, trust building, and collaboration at scale.

• Actors help communities envision—and achieve—desirable futures

The museum field continuously assesses and decides how to respond to changes in the professions that interact with our work, and changes in the public’s interests. Climate change – how to mitigate it and how to adapt to it – is something we can no longer avoid and still feel we are serving our communities well. 

This report can help our profession embrace the profession of climate adaptation as our ally. What these professionals know and are learning can help us protect our collections and our buildings, while helping to keep our staff and our public safe at the same time. And it will save us money in the long term, and save more than a few of our institutions as well.

Note: The Kresge Foundation funded the report. The work was prepared by Suzanne Moser Research and Consulting (susannemoser.com),  Climate Resilience Consulting (climateresilience.com), and FourTwentySeven Climate Solutions (427mt.com). 

Museums & UN Sustainable Development Goals: I

"When we lift [up] our eyes from the present struggles -- politics, health crises, homelessness and hate -- and look around with a view to the larger world, what do we see?

More of the same."

Not only, this of course, but it is what draws our attention. That is what symptoms do: draw your attention; but they're not the problems. The world's on-the-surface struggles are rooted in poverty and inequality, lack of education and valued work, economic imbalances, and source scarcity, anxiety, and depletion.

That text is from The Value of History column on "Museums and the Paris Agreement" in History News written for the American Association for State and Local History (Autumn 2017, Vol 72, #4). In it I gave examples for ways history museums and historic sites can address 12 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development goals (SDGs). For any other type of museum I could prepare the same article with as much alignment with the SDGs, and an unlimited variety of ways to do that good work.

For 2018 this blog space will include examination of the ways science centers, art museums, zoos, aquariums, museums and historic sites can support the SDGs. I'll start here with historic site and museum examples, but I hope you will offer your own ideas and examples. Together we can make it easier for our peers to join us in #museumsforparis. Together we can show the world that #wearestillin.

SDG#1 No Poverty (End poverty in all its forms everywhere)

Historic sites that were settlement houses, such as Jane Addams' Hull-House Museum or the House of the Seven Gables, provide programming that examine homelessness, poverty, and the need for social networks to support community members, and inspire people to personal and collective action.

These issues are not so far from each of us or our neighbors, and they are common for so many outside our own worlds. A divorce or a job loss, a serious injury or illness, a natural disaster, or an act of terrorism can upend a life, a family, and communities. How can we help ourselves or others if we do not understand these issues, learn to process them, and determine how to respond? We can come to understand these issues and ourselves, and what we can do to create change, through the work of historic sites. The House of the Seven Gables envisions this as "Unbounded, Magnified Good."

SDGs #6, #11, and #15 Clean Water & Sanitation, Sustainable Cities &Communities, and Life on Land
If we tallied museums' and historic sites' landscapes (water and land, garden and yards), and all the hard surfaces (roofs, parking lots, walkways, patios), think of all the surface area we have to turn to environmental advantage! Historic sites often have more impact here than many other types of museums. Farm landscape can be managed organically; historic energy and water systems (fish ponds, water turbines, windmills) can be restored and operated to reduce impact, and you can restore historic habitats for native species and natural services lost to urban development. Historic sites have tremendous opportunity to support their missions and SDGs at the same time.

• Is water runoff from your site clean? 
• Does it tax municipal treatment systems or put neighbors or downstream residents at risk? 
• What could you do to make sure all water leaves your property cleaner than when it arrived? 
• Does your site make your city more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable? 
• Do you have a green roof or walls that keeps the community cooler, creates habitat for species, and saves energy while providing visual and emotional benefits? 
• Is your garden space or central atrium or whole site programmed and accessible to appeal to all, and encourage inclusion?
• How about biodiversity?
• Does your property contribute to biodiversity? 
• Does your programming or research? 
• Can you convert that hardscape into greenscape? 
• When you have to repave that parking lot, is it the opportunity you need to install a permeable system to reduce stormwater management construction and processing?
• Or can you create a catchment system to create habitat while avoiding stormwater management construction and processing? 

This work is far easier than it appears. It aligns with much of what we already do. It requires no mission creep, no extra money, no change in programming. You could do all that, but you don't need to. 

All it requires is thinking intentionally about how our institutions support the common good - oh wait, that's what we do every day, we just didn't see before how it aligns with the global good. 

Now we do. Contact me, please. Join #museumsforparis    sarah@sustainablemuseums.net 

Start the New Year with an Intellectual Bang!

Please, please read The Future of Natural History Museums, edited by Eric Dorfman and published by Routledge for ICOM. It is a marvelously thoughtful, well-researched, and energetic look at where natural history museums have been, are right now, and may rightly go if their staff and leaders are courageous enough to venture forth in the manner humanity requires.

The international set of authors provides the perfect perspective  to summon museums to challenge business as usual and to confront the changes to our planet. All other forms of museums have a place in confronting Humanity's worries, yet the authors make it clear that the natural history museums have a special mandate to do so.

If you are...
...looking for inspiration...
...teaching in museums studies or citizen activism around climate change
...a futurist
...a museum leader...
then I strongly recommend this important book.  It should be a backbone text in any personal or professional program of study as we each prepare for a dramatically different future for the museum profession.

Christopher Norris writes in his Introduction, "There is considerable difference, however, between studying the past and belonging in the past." "Natural history collections are widely recognized as part of the national and international research infrastructure..."

Lynda Knowles' essay "International and National Legislation" is very through (especially given space available) and valuable - do not miss it; you need it to lay your role in this global profession.

The multi-author chapter on "The Essential Role of Museums in Biodiversity Conservation" beautifully addresses the intricacies of the science and natural history museums' responsibility for citizen engagement for biodiversity: "...how can they 'inspire the citizenry to become the environmental conscience of the nation' (Krishtalka and Humphrey, 2000)? [Natural history museums] need to lower the barrier to conservation action by capitalizing on easy access to information through digital and virtual platforms, and the popularity of social media to promote solutions through specific, locally relevant, choices for action."

Nearly all the authors bring the present-day status of natural history museums into context with the Anthropocene, "a proposed geological era that reflects human impacts so pervasive as to influence the geological record. These effects will be detectable millions of years from now, bu whoever might be looking, as an unprecedented band of plastics, fly ash, radionuclides, metals, pesticides, reactive nitrogen, and consequences of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations." (Editor Eric Dorfman, p. 2, referring to Waters, et al., 2016.)

Eric Dorfman, Emlyn Koster, T. Simioti Nyambe, in making a case for relevancy of natural history museums, write "nature-focused museums should whole-heartedly become resources to illuminate the meaning and implications of the Anthropocene." and "The Anthropocene represents the best available frame of reference for engaging society in planet Earth's best possible future."

Christopher J. Garthe, in his excellent, excellent chapter "That Natural Futures Museum" (you see that, yes, Futures?), writes "The central challenges of the twenty-first century, whether pertaining to climate change, food security, intellectual property, or traditional knowledge, all have interconnections with the natural sciences. Additionally, as humankind is part of the natural world and all global challenges innately concern humans, natural history museums are - especially as compared to other museums -- perfect places to learn about, and address, the issues of the twenty-first century."

Conclusion
This book is for and about natural history museums. It's the best yet out there as a call to action and an absolute must-read for anyone in the museum profession. It often mentions zoos, aquariums, and science centers. We can easily widen this call to all types of museums - I do all the time. I hope you can all hear me now after reading how natural history museums are staking out important territory to their benefit and the planet's. Wouldn't you want to as well?

The Anthropocene is about what man has done to the planet. It can be argued that the zoos, aquariums, and science centers have more of an emphasis on the planet than on mankind compared to the art and history and children's museums, yet the arts and humanities are not - by any stretch of the imagination - exempt from this discussion! They must contribute to this discussion. Why and how has mankind come to this point, and how will we respond? This is the responsibility of each of us in the museum field, no matter what type of institution we work for: study ourselves and the world around us so we can make a better future for all. 

Conal McCarthy in his terrific closing "Commentary" writes "This long-held division between the sciences and the arts is unfortunate and debilitating, but, as it is itself the product of history, it can be overcome." "The longtime split between the 'two cultures' of the sciences and the humanities has to be healed, and the two sides integrated, so that students in courses and professionals in museums benefit from a more holistic and interdisciplinary nexus of training, practice, theory, and research."

May these synergies become the marks of success in the New Year for us all.

Ransom Note From the Future: The Last Chance...

Plastic Plague II: Bishop Museum Display

Do you know this photo? It's Chris Jordan's iconic photo of plight of Earth's other living beings exposed to human-generated trash and other environmental gradation.






The Richard T. Mamiya Science Adventure Center, the Bishop Museum  has a few examples of trash sculpture describing ocean trash and animal endangerment. This image has always been the most compelling for me.


To find such dangers on an isolated atoll (see Albatrash label) demonstrates just how dangerously pervasive human impacts are.

Abandoned fishing nets make up this bird's nest. Last night on the news we heard about a successful disentanglement of a Humpback whale of Maui. Plastic and ghost nets are two of the great scourges on the sea. Three cheers for the scientists and watermen and waterwomen who help protect sea life,  the citizens who keep on hauling this stuff out of the ocean, and the museums that keep sharing these messages.