The smallest things matter when thinking through the causes and implications of climate change. That’s made clear from the beginning of a traveling exhibit about one of the globe’s most pressing challenges. The exhibit debuted last month at the Field Museum.

In the introductory vestibule of Climate Change, a thin red line tracks, in 50-year increments from 1600 to 2000, the parts per million of carbon dioxide estimated to hover in the atmosphere.

The line is superimposed over images of the devices that have allowed humanity to make full use of the energy stored in fossil fuels. At the beginning of the chart are the rudiments of coal technology; at its end is a crowded jumble of familiar items in regular use — a jet plane, a computer, a semi-truck.

The red line rises steadily and then leaps in 1950. That’s when there were an estimated 311 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to the exhibit. In 2000, scientists found about 369 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Environmental campaigners have targeted lowering the number to 350 parts per million. A short introductory film lists that number at 385 and rising two parts per million annually. The number is even higher today.

Climate Change was curated by the American Museum of Natural History in New York and opened there in the fall of 2008. The exhibit situates the science underlying global climate change adjacent to discussions about its expected impact on various parts of the world. It identifies a range of steps people and communities can take to combat the problem.

At its best, the exhibit explains the science and consequences of climate change. It does so using attractive panels, interactive displays and videos with accessible language and visuals.

Carbon dioxide, visitors will learn or be reminded of, exists naturally in the atmosphere, trapping heat from the sun. The problem is that humanity is letting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at rates never seen before.

Climate Change explains the process’s implications for the hundreds of millions of people who live near sea level around the world, for animals and their habitats. The changes, the exhibit reminds visitors, are already happening.

Responses to climate change form a big part of the exhibit and this is important. In any exhibit that deals with a topic that broaches potential catastrophe, and climate change is one such topic, the what-are-we-going-to-do questions necessarily beg an answer.

It makes little sense to educate people about a human-induced change to the natural world and display startling reminders that change may bring — the countries in the global south most at risk of increased drought or floods, where the Atlantic waters would fill lower Manhattan, a mangy polar bear scrounging through garbage looking for food — if ideas for a better path aren’t offered.

The ideas Climate Change offers its viewers are a mixture of personal steps, technological shifts and policy changes. The latter points are key; it is axiomatic that a shift to renewable energy is needed and green building retrofits in Chicago, for example, are important. But personal steps are perhaps most explicit and it’s here that the exhibit lacks urgency.

On a rectangular panel called “What Can We Do?,” for example, individual actions anyone can take to reduce their climate change impact are listed: we could eat less meat and fly less, print out less paper and recycle the dead ink on trees we do use. The panel seeks a response from visitors, too. At the center of the seven categories that organize the changes people can make is a calculator that tallies another person ready to carry out “some of these actions” every time a button is pushed.

Are such changes enough? The “What Can We Do?” panel’s suggestions for tackling climate change are important ones, and part of any movement to address climate change. But it’s happening and deepening right now on a global scale, and the solutions ultimately must be commensurate with that scale.

One can’t press the commit button in the exhibit for “Demand a binding, international climate treaty to dramatically drive down the amount of carbon dioxide emissions.” The actions offered as solutions in Climate Change can’t be taken in isolation of this yet-to-be-struck treaty, or as a replacement for it. They’re simply not sufficient to the challenge.

Similarly, though the panel includes a section called “Raising Awareness” that posits visitors become “politically involved” as another solution to climate change this, too, is understood as something personal: “The more you know, the better choices you can make,” accompanying text reads.

Unless that knowledge implies fighting for climate change legislation, the point comes off as shunted to the side, which is too bad. This thing called climate change, after all, is no small thing.

CONTACT: mmaidenberg@chicagojournal.com

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By Bonnie McGrath from South Loop
Posted: 07/21/2010 11:30 AM

I know what you mean, Micah; there was nothing panicky about the exhibit, which i saw a few days ago and thought was quite well done. I think there's method to the madness. I think the tone helps convince the non-believers of the ways we are contributing to this problem, while at the same time calming down those who are freaked out and who may become paralyzed with fear. The exhibit teaches the science in a calm manner, and gives people plenty of ideas about things we can all do now.

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By Stylo from South side
Posted: 07/07/2010 10:30 PM

There are doubts over ice cores as discovered by Jaworowski. The ice loses CO2 with time and drilling, underestimating past levels. See: http://www.warwickhughes.com/icecore/IceCoreSprg97.pdf Even the theory that CO2 is a greenhouse gas in free-circulating atmosphere is in doubt (since 1909). Please see here: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/06/greenhouse-theory-disproven-in-1909.html Please stop teaching these lies to our kids thereby ruining America's prosperity and sovereignty.

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By Stylo from South side
Posted: 07/07/2010 10:26 PM

This is just propaganda. The natural flux of sources and sinks from nature (702 Gt/yr) is 27 times bigger than human output (26 Gt/yr). The natural ocean store (140,000 Gt CO2 equiv.) is 5,400 times more than human yearly output. It is released by atmospheric heat with a time-lag of 800 years. Past CO2 has often been as high as today with the fluctuation being caused by nature. It's simply propaganda to assume that humans cause the CO2 increase. (Ocean CO2 has similar dC13 to fossil fuel)