Creating A Climate Cabinet

Though appropriate and valuable, my approach of museums-as-catalyst-for-behavior-change has limits to its reach and momentum at the moment; so do my attempts to cluster that work in cities on behalf of community resilience. My, our, hopes are not a plan.

To scale our impact, museums, zoos, gardens, aquariums, and historic sites need a Climate Cabinet to coordinate action for strategic impact on global goals. A cabinet of thinkers and doers whose full-time mission is to foster, connect, and strengthen the individual projects of museums, zoos, gardens, and their partners so that they reach a scale that can see the outcome of a planet healthier for all.

At the moment, activism through marches fails to use is slogans and chants in ways that inform the public of anything other than the marchers’ opinions. Marches grab attention but block little and advance less.

The #museumsdivest actions are better. They bring attention to a specific incidence of a larger threat. They call for specific action that is clear and has some larger effect through its symbolism, and not because a company is involved, but a museum is involved. How can we scale that?

For those doing this work, we have to do too much individually, still, with too little media coverage no matter how loud you shout. What if those individual projects could still move ahead, but with connections and awareness that scaled their impacts?

The Wild Center in the Adirondacks of New York has fostered youth climate leadership programs for nearly a decade. Can it use more partners even though it already reaches out globally?  

#NotAnAlternative and The Natural History Museum are making terrific statements and raising awareness around environmental justice for Latinx and Black neighborhoods near petrochemical sites in Texas, and indigenous populations fighting for land and water protection in Canada or the US against, among other threats, pipeline takeovers in Canada or the US. What if they were able to coordinate efforts with more groups for scaled public impact?

Maui Ocean Center is going to lead the way in coral reef reconstruction not just for environmental remediation or restoration, but eventually climate-positive change through healthy coral reefs adapted to climate change. There are a lot of aquariums propagating coral; is there a strategic approach to deploying them?

Scale matters. We need more of it in more places. If we allow it to develop organically, it will take too long to be enough. Not only is the world too big, but the negative impacts on the environment, and climate changes, have too many sources and no single solution. Climate change is a “wicked problem”. To address it we must coordinate our efforts. 

Colleges and universities started doing this a decade ago and have achieved solid success as campuses go climate neutral today or set 2020 target dates. Based on their example, and how they have moved the market on sustainability and now climate response, we could leapfrog to strategic, coordinated work that is climate positive.

The field has been intentional about coordinating critical work before, so it can do it again:

•         AZA has a species survival plan program that coordinates the breeding of individuals worldwide regardless of which zoo they come from. It’s for the good of the species, and therefor planetary biodiversity.
•         Museums and lawmakers have created ethics and guidelines and regulations to prevent trafficking in stolen antiquities, to facilitate return of items confiscated during World War II, and for repatriation of Native American cultural items, including human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony  

Those programs are made of protocols and laws, which result in important work. We also need programs made of strategic partnerships and planning for expanded impact. We need a climate cabinet committed to strategic support, and coordinated to scale the impact of individual institutions’ efforts. Its staff could help members could strategically recombine specific approaches as an ecosystem of action that strategically advances practice. At that scale, we could measure it all against climate impacts.

So, when Wildlife Reserves in Singapore focuses on exotic pet trafficking, the destination centers do too. If zoos and aquariums can work with advertisers to divert buyers to domestic sources or alternative choices, the demand may eventually reduce the trade. In the process, others can focus on intentional development of alternative trades which advertisers and zoos and aquariums can reinforce in the exotic pet source area. This is good work already underway, and an excellent example of what we could do in more areas.

So, when Maui Ocean Center focuses on coral, others do as well; collectively they serve the remediation needs of the shipping industry and military worldwide, and the protection needs of island and coastal communities. They could map the need for corals, the kinds of corals needed, and propagate enough to conduct the installations. This is excellent work started and soon will be ready to scale. Let’s start planning for that.

It is too much to expect each institution to also create a collaborative team for a worldwide impact. But if there is an existing infrastructure, shared ethic, and recognized expectation of coordinated effort and global impact, the innovators will scale their action. 

The whole world is a museum; each of our institutions is only a program within it, our fields are the departments. The globe and all that is on it is a learning environment available to humans for intellectual, cultural, scientific, and nature-based engagement every day. Would we choose to lead our museums without mission and strategy? Without collaboration? Without a larger purpose? Then why do we? 

NYC 2019: Proposed Climate Summit - let's showcase museums and others as valued "subnational actors"

The UN Secretary General is outlining ways to accelerate climate action in advance of the 2019 Climate Summit. The goal is significant impacts on reducing emissions and building resilience. The focus was these six items:

• clean technology
• carbon pricing
• the energy transition 
• risk mitigation
• augmenting the contribution of sub-national actors and business
• mobilizing finance.  

This speaks to the informal learning fields directly: our museums, zoos, gardens, and sites are critical the "sub-national actors" in all of this work to engage the public in understanding, supporting, and taking action in all these areas.  

Secretary-General António Guterres told about 20 world leaders that

• “Your leadership is absolutely key to attaining and raising the ambition of the Paris Agreement." 
• "We need all actors in society to work for a resilient and low emissions future – national and local governments, businesses and investors, scientists, civil society and citizens everywhere.
• We need to build ambition and accelerate action – before it’s too late.”

Despite, perhaps because, US leaders were conspicuously absent at this high level meeting, let's see the work of our institutions, along those of our cities and states, at the forefront of the great stories coming out of Climate 2019. 

#museumsforparis 

Ransom Note for a Future: XXVII

Draft Characteristics of Excellence for Environmental Sustainability in US Museums

For over a year now, PIC Green (our facebook page), has been gathering comments on how the field should proceed on incorporate performance related to environmental sustainability into its professional expectations. PIC Green (AAM website page) is the professional network, formerly Professional Interest Committee, on environmental sustainability for the American Alliance of Museums.

Last year we hosted the Tides of March online discussions about how to move ahead (note - this link has even more links to other professional association with developed standards). As a result of those talks, and the three years' previous Green Summits at the AAM conferences, we drafted a set of Characteristics of Excellence.

While AAM is reviewing its overall process for establishing characteristics and standards of excellence, and we wait to hear about IMLS support for that effort, PIC Green continues to move its project forward. This year at the AAM conference we held a flash session to discuss the draft and made some valuable changes.

We would appreciate your comments on what we have developed so far:

The museum states its role in stewardship of the environment, demonstrates how its choices align with that role, and actively addresses related environmental concerns within the community.

The museum measures and makes public its environmental impacts; sets goals for continuous improvement; and evaluates progress and effectiveness.

The museum demonstrates leadership by exceeding environmental codes, regulations, and professional standards as appropriate, e.g. higher efficiency, or more effective practices. 

The museum has reviewed its investments and set a time frame investing in a socially responsible portfolio.

The museum has a plan and time frame for becoming climate neutral, then climate positive.

The museum identifies risks resulting from climate change, and takes steps to anticipate and mitigate risks and damage for itself and, in collaboration, on behalf of the community.

Book Review: Why We Ignore Climate Change

Do you ever wonder why you're so careful to remember that reusable coffee mug and those cloth grocery bags, but cannot give up your long showers? I do.

Don't know why you can feel for the people suffering from drought and fire far across the country, but not be as concerned about water use at home?

Don't know why not everyone thinks to recycle cans or bottles?

George Marshall helps us understand in his terrific, terrific book Don't Even Think About It!

It is far better to read this book than take only my brief notes from it, but here is my very simple summary: humans are complex; so is climate change. Family (human family) counseling is in order.

We humans compartmentalize our emotional brain and our rational brain in effect allowing us to hold two contrary thoughts at once.

We humans also accept and hold onto information that confirms what we already believe. We are willing to shape our opinions to reflect available data, expectations, and options (no drought yet so won't happen here).

We are likely to choose to listen to media and peers that affirm our beliefs, creating a "false consensus" as we limit the information they allow in. (Think you you stream only certain media, or give a thumbs up to certain kinds of music.)

We may feel that climate messages are too easily hijacked by media, corporate types, and activists. This makes it so difficult or risky to choose whom to trust, so why try? ("I heard that recyclers in [big city name] just take it to the landfill, so why bother recycling".)

We often think someone else is more likely to have success at tackling such a big problem, such as someone in the government or in charge of an energy company.

And the kicker, is that though Climate Change, its components and impacts, is all around us, it is frequently invisible. We humans find it easier to get up in arms against a visible enemy with a clear evil intent and obvious past transgressions.

That's quite a list! You can see how together those conditions create helpless or disconnected attitudes. When we suffer from episodes of bystander syndrome we can leave climate change to others to manage. When we let our confirmation bias or availability bias engage, we can attribute climate-related discomforts and difficulties to diffuse, multiple causes far away, and can stop short of seeing our own connections. And if the Climate isn't out to get us, and there's no enemy but ourselves, where is the urgency?

Museums to the rescue. Museums can help humans understand what has happened and is happening, and can connect that evidence to people's values, attitudes, knowledge, skills, and agency so that we all can do something productive.

The American public continues to consider museums the most, or among the most, trusted sources of information. Let's devise a coordinated effort that results in the public seeing collective response to climate change as the smart thing, the right thing, and the thing we want to be a part of. Let's make it cool (and then normal) to be aware and active. Let's give ourselves a safe place to talk about our questions and fears around climate change and their futures. Then we can come together to take creative, strategic steps toward Change. 

Headed to AAM's Annual Meeting - High Green Expectations

Each year I wait to see how many others are presenting green topics - I'm conflicted over hoping for many and hoping for few -

Many means we're getting the word out on this important topic, and enough practitioners have enough to say to support multiple presentations.

Few could mean there's too little work going on, too little interest, OR it's too 'normal' for special sessions.

So the truth is that I hope for that last definition of few.  Sadly we are nowhere near that yet.

But I am heartened by what I see on the schedule  - I can't even get to them all!  I"ll report on those I can attend; then post-conference I'll get the CD's of those I miss.  Remember - you too can buy CD's of all these presentations in case you're carbon-reduction plans are keeping you at home!

 Here's what I get to attend:

• Sunday - Climate Change and Collective Action
• Monday - Changing Environmental Standards (on collections care conditions)
• Monday - Green 101 Workshop (presenting)
• Tuesday - Going Green at the Museum
• Wednesday - The Long View - Leadership Decisions for Environmentally-Sustainable Museeum Projects (chair)

Here's hoping there's green magic in the air at AAM this year.

Watch the UK's Creative Spaces

Keep an eye on Creative Spaces, the National Museums Online Learning Project. By connecting the collections of nine National Museums, the site offers users a chance to learn from all the collections.

I particularly like the notebook feature. If you were Darwin, you'd be creating a field notebook and collecting specimens. Here, you can do it, and save it, online. That's terrific public engagement.

The site launched just last week - with much pomp and circumstance. Looks worth it! Try it - http://nhm.nmolp.org/creativespaces

~ SB

Colbert, Humor, and American Museums

Last winter there was a large-format digital print hanging temporarily at the National Portrait Gallery. Yes, the one on the way to the second-floor bathrooms. Yes, Stephen Colbert’s portrait.

Originally the Gallery had planned to keep it on view for six weeks. It garnered so much public attention that the Gallery extended its stay four more weeks until ~ April Fool’s Day.

There were lines down the hall on Saturdays. Strangers took pictures for each other as they posed with the portrait. Teenagers and young men -- not the Gallery’s usual demographic -- came in droves. Compared to the same months last year, attendance jumped 20% in January with only two weeks of Colbert exposure. It jumped 33% in February, and then 57% in March as the public got in its last month of portrait-viewing.

The run was good for Colbert; it could be great for museums.

Museums and their staff value humor much more than the stereotype implies or our performance illustrates. Clearly the public values any humor we museum-folk might dare to share. Still, some museum-types (people and institutions) are uncomfortable with what might be considered a media ‘stunt’ to attract attention. They worry that it might lead to dilution: of mission, message, importance, quality…all very valuable associations for museums.

The Colbert Episode shows that humor (and the media) can lead to discussions, engagement, excitement, new opportunities…all very valuable associations for museums.

The Gallery’s foray into public humor, and so into public discourse, was a masterful example of sharp minds at work: that of Colbert, his staff and the Gallery staff.

And it’s a sorely-needed example of public playfulness in a museum. May we see more of it and may the public help museums practice it and relish it.

~ SB