WUWT readers may recall our guest post from Russ Steele in 2009: CA Academy of Science AGW display apparently not very popular
Here are a couple of photos from his visit then:
That’s one big hockey stick they got there – click to enlarge
He wrote then:
For the most part these displays were ignored, except for a few casual observers seeking refuge from the long lines at the real science displays. This lack of interest and participation seems to reflect the recent Gallup Polls indicating people are not really concerned about global warming, or ocean warming either. It could be our children have caught on to the scam, or they have reached global warming overload for the school lessons, and want some real science for change of pace.
I visited the CAS for the very first time on Saturday with my children, and I’m pleased to report that the exhibit is now in pieces on the floor, and cordoned off from the general public. I asked a museum docent “why is the global warming exhibit in the museum brochure (showing her mine) but closed off?”
Her response was priceless:
People just weren’t warming up to the exhibit. We are doing a new one on Earthquakes opening soon.
Russ Steele was right.
Maybe it had to do with the message. For example, this bit of ridiculous propaganda in the original exhibit:
Image from “In my Copious Free Time“
Or maybe the fact that people didn’t like being lectured on what to eat, especially when the exhibit was in full view of the museum’s Academy Cafe:
Image above from Wandering Architect.
The “Carbon Cafe” is in shambles now, as is the “green building” portion of the exhibit, click to enlarge:
Here are more views of the dismantled exhibit:
In it’s heyday, it looked like this:
Image above from Cinnabar, Inc. details: New Academy of Sciences, Cinnabar’s “Altered State” Exhibits Speak Up about Climate Change and California
The whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling is still there, but everything else is dismantled.
Maybe it was the labeling of California as an “altered state” in their press release for it that did it in. The LA Times said at the opening that it was a Museuem that Shouts Climate Change.
I guess maybe they shouted too loud, because now they plan to exhibit on something that Californians can really relate to:
When the über green California Academy of Sciences pulls the plug, you know “climate change” is a dead issue with the public.
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I did a photo essay on this exhibit a few years ago. It is at http://www.climateviews.com/Climate_Views/Download_Articles.html along with photo essays of other climate exhibits in Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston
These are “scientists”.
oh…. really….
I say they are propagandists.
Science is now a religion hijacked by the greens. You can’t trust a scientist anymore.
I was the exhibit director for a children’s museum. After having built many successful exhibits, I have the feeling I was “let go” because I refused to acknowledge global warming and did not want to build exhibits about global warming. Some of the educators became very angry when I mentioned the medieval warm period and pulled out the chart about recurring ice ages. One of them told me that none of that mattered; if the fear of global warming would stop people from polluting then it was a good thing. I would have gladly tackled any real environmental issue. However, it was not what everyone else wanted. Things have changed though and my old boss was recently “let go.” It is too late for me though because I no longer build exhibits.
Kudos for the viewing public for ignoring the exhibit. Some of the observations remind me of a visit my family took several years ago. We visited the Monteray Aquarium with my two sons (one elementary the other middle school aged at the time). From a previous visit several years previously I had talked up what a great museum to the aquatic realm the aquarium was. Unfortunately, after a long wait to get in, I was shocked to see how propagandized the overall experience had become with the overwhelming message that we, the people, were destroying the world. Talk about “painting with a broad brush”! But the most irritating message was the sledgehammer “lecturing” about what we should and shouldn’t eat. Even my kids were put off.
Those ‘duck and cover’ drills were two-purposed DavidA, as anyone who lives in the Midwest (as I did) or central US can testify to …
Map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tornado_Alley.gif
.
Rogelio says:
… All climate fights will go the same way …. and he is correct. But Anthony, like all warriors, after an epoch battle will go about their life perusing their new interests and looking for new challenges. An on his walls will hang the bloggies, emblems of his victories for common sense and real science. History may well record his contributions to the human race.
Crap? I don’t think so. It is very possible to be plenty far enough outside of the kill zone from the direct radiation of a nuke hit but lose you life from flying glass from the shock wave or lose your sight by looking at the UV. “Duck and cover” is as valid today as it was in 50’s. Hopefully you’ll never have to thank me…
Of course if you live in Massachusetts your chances of survival after a nuke are a lot less thanks to John Kerry who penned exec order 242 for Michael Dukakis.
The display was just as ill-conceived as Renzo Piano’s awful eco-architecture. The greenies RUINED the Academy of Sciences. Shame.
etudiant says:
February 20, 2012 at 8:00 am
“Contrary to some of the other posters on this panel, the “The climate is an angry beast…’ quote seems very relevant and correct to me. The ice cores do show that the shift from interglacial to glacial happened very quickly, possibly within less than a decade.”
—————————-
Etudiant,
I think you are off by at least a factor of 100 or more in your decade estimate for transition from interglacial to glacial. The transition looks more like at least ~1,000+ yrs based on proxy data and geology.
I cannot easily get references handy while socializing at a Starbucks near the Mission district here in San Francisco. : )
John
I submit that it wasn’t a lack of interest in climate change as the reason for shutting it down.
It was more likely the continuous belly laughs coming from that area of the Academy that made them close it in embarrassment!
I know I would have added to the din! 😉
Like anecdotal weather citations not being climate, anecdotal occurrences like the CAS’s climate change exhibit closure is not evidence that the philosophical battle is even close to being over in the struggle for objective climate related science embedded voluntarily in an individual right based free society. Vigilance is needed more than ever my dear independent thinkers (aka skeptics).
On the bright side, however, the accelerating number of anecdotal pieces of evidence of the dissolution of the IPCC centric CAGW by CO2 appears to energize independent thinkers to significantly increase engagement in the open discourse. : )
John
etudiant says:
February 20, 2012 at 8:00 am
“We should at least remain aware that the climate is quite evidently just as stable in a glacial mode as in our current interglacial and we have no understanding of what makes the difference.”
Do have a go at these two things:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-defense-of-milankovitch-by-gerard.html
The above is Luboš Motl (trf) ‘The Reference Frame’ on July 6, 2010 (and a bit more on 1/9/212) comments on this paper . . .
In defense of Milankovitch, Geophysical Research Letters (backup), Vol. 33, L24703, doi:10.1029/2006GL027817, 2006 (full text PDF)
Find here:
http://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/roe/GerardWeb/Publications_files/Roe_Milankovitch_GRL06.pdf
—————————————
“experiment with our atmosphere”
If you mean CO2, then you might like to investigate the physics of saturation regarding radiation and such gases. Namely, the current effect on atmospheric temperature is probably under 2 Celsius degrees and the gas concentration would have to double to produce another equal effect. And then double again to get another two degrees. Then work out some usage numbers to determine whether or not that will ever happen. Then, explain how anyone knows that a slightly warmer atmosphere would be catastrophic.
“working hard to end our use of fossil fuels”
So far, this only works for a country that has neighbors with power plants capable of sending excess power to your under-performing wind and solar experiments. Germany thought so highly of your “nuclear” option that they shut off their reactors. See the current post and many others on P. Gosselin’s NoTricksZone:
http://notrickszone.com/category/alternative-energy/
Nice lush rain forest exibit…in a greenhouse.
Nice fossilized megafaunal specimen from another era when life was far larger, diverse, and abundant, under some other radically different past…climate conditions.
How appropriate that this famous academy is located in the city who is represented by the hockey puck Pelosi who is such a strong advocate of climate change legislation intended to penalize hard working Americans. Congrats to the CAS for recognizing that the hockey stick mentality must be abolished and replaced with REAL science. It was shameful to see the exhibit when visiting the academy.
Bill Parsons says:
February 20, 2012 at 9:28 am
Bill,
Funny. Sorry to hear you were so categorized. Erroneously, perhaps, as you obviously have progressed to the surprise of all concerned.
Suggest they replace it with a ‘low carbon’ exhibit… about the La Brea tar pits?!
Much more interesting and based on verifiable science.
Dave N at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/19/california-academy-of-sciences-pulls-the-plug-on-their-climate-change-exhibit/#comment-897337
While it looks like it was not a very compelling exhibit, I don’t see anything misrepresented in the CO2 hockey stick.
Do you object to microphotography on the grounds that the solar system isn’t well represented? The variety of time scales is simply part of the turf. You pick one and make your point.
A longer time scale might be distracting for the intended audience, since it would have more features, but you would have to step back mighty far to obscure the point it was making. It remains a key fact that the ongoing increase in CO2 has no known precedent in terms of its rate and amplitude. Do you dispute that?
“”””” Dave Wendt says:
February 20, 2012 at 12:46 am
George E. Smith; says:
February 19, 2012 at 10:11 pm
Many thanks Dave, I knew somebody would figurei t out before I did. I couldn’t find the “older posts” tag at the bottom of the visible page to go back.
It seems that they have the archives posted on the side there. Well they say the best way to hide your house key, is to hang it on the outside of your front door. Who’d a thunk Anthony would put th’archives on the side ? !
I just tried your link and got what I needed; thanx.
And I was so looking forward to seeing glaciers filling Yosemite valley again! Oh wait, that would be global cooling …my mistake.
I decided to check on who “Russ Steele” is, the guy whose quote criticizing the museum’s cautionary climate change exhibit is found close to the beginning of this article. A minute’s worth of searching on Google revealed that “Russ Steele” is, by his own biographical account, “a systems engineer, freelance writer. Lt Col, USAF (Ret)” who got a “social science” degree from Troy State University.
Hilarious! Isn’t it wonderful how on ludicrous websites like this, you peddle nonsense on technical matters from people who have zero technical background in the areas of science on which they make pronouncements!!!
To anyone not determined to believe what is posted here because it agrees with their smug prejudices, this Website stands discredited as a know-nothing anti-global warming site. Enjoy preaching to the choir.
Berto the man gave an opinion just like yours. Now since you feel compelled to judge, give us your name and background to be fair.
Well it seems that I once actually visited the CAS, which is an absolute miracle because I do NOT go to San Francisco for any reason; Well sometimes my wife brow beats me into taking her to see something like maybe the King Tut exhibit, every 25 years, and every time I vow never again.
and the one thing I do remember about the CAS was that stupid climate exhibit, which was as dumb as a pet rock. So dumb, that I have absolutely no recollection of whatever else they might have there. I’m still debating whether I am going to go to SF to watch Team Emirates New Zealand lift the America’s Cup from Larry Ellison. (fear not, Larry, we’d love to have you come back down under to try and get it back).
For any of you Euro Yachtie fans out there, the Volvo round the worlders are scheduled to arrive in Auckland, the day after I get there (March 8th) I’ll be down at the Viaduct to greet them, and help them enjoy some Kiwi beers or wines.
When this climate phantasy passes from our view; yeah it warms and it cools; so what ? we’ll find some other interesting science to visit our attention on. I doubt that we will ever exhaust everthing so that we are left with just the first 10^-43 seconds after the big bang to wonder about; suppsedly that’s when those big Higgs Bozos were all over the place; damn small place it was.
“”””” Michael Tobis says:
February 20, 2012 at 11:59 am
Dave N at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/19/california-academy-of-sciences-pulls-the-plug-on-their-climate-change-exhibit/#comment-897337
………………………..
A longer time scale might be distracting for the intended audience, since it would have more features, but you would have to step back mighty far to obscure the point it was making. It remains a key fact that the ongoing increase in CO2 has no known precedent in terms of its rate and amplitude. Do you dispute that? “””””
Well hell yes Michael, earth used to have around 7,000 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere, and life flourished like nobody’s business.
In fact right now, earth is enjoying a period of the lowest atmospheric CO2 that we have had in hundreds of million years; sure it was lower in 1958, when believable measurements started , but under 1,000 ppm has been a rarity in the grand scheme of things. So far, nothing much has happened as a result.
IT’S THE WATER !!
Michael Tobis says:
February 20, 2012 at 11:59 am
A longer time scale might be distracting for the intended audience, since it would have more features, but you would have to step back mighty far to obscure the point it was making. It remains a key fact that the ongoing increase in CO2 has no known precedent in terms of its rate and amplitude.
By “distracting” you must mean “not at all scary”, since the whole point of that graph is to alarm, not inform. Otherwise, they would have shown graphs like these:
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_400k_yrs.html
Willis Eschenbach,
Given that the most common US slang phrase for you suggestion is “stick it where the sun doesn’t shine” and that the exhibit will likely end up in some windowless store room this could be read as compliant with your suggestion depending on the precise wording
Bruce Cobb, see that vertical stripe way over on the left? I find that quite concerning. Clearly there is nothing like it in the record. Now the public might miss it on that scale, but it’s the single most salient feature of the whole thing.
So it makes sense to focus in on it on a shorter time scale, and it was entirely true and in no way misleading.