Did Humanity Engineer Its Own Demise?

The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH)’s teen-focused late-night program “SciCafe” is back with a thought-provoking discussion on Climate Control. Featuring associate professor Kevin Uno of Harvard University, this session will analyze how humanity’s desire for environmental control may have had alarming impacts on our natural environment.

Read for the event description below!

Humans evolved in the natural world with little to no control over our environment.
Over time, humans began to find ways to adapt to varying climates by making clothing and shelter, and, eventually, by controlling fire. This ultimately led to central heating and air conditioning, but at great cost.

In this SciCafe, join Kevin Uno, associate professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, for a discussion on the ways in which humanity’s need to control its own environment has led to dire impacts on global climate and where do we go from here.

Please note, SciCafe is intended to be a casual, social environment. Seating is not guaranteed.
ASL interpretation will be provided for this program

Visit the link to get tickets or learn more: Sci Cafe

Do you believe that museums have a role to play in tackling the climate crisis?

MuseumNext’s Green Museums Summit returns in 2024 with inspiring presentations sharing the latest projects, activations and ideas from museums around the globe. MCCN’s own Dr Jenny Newell and Madison Kuras will be presenting, as well as a number of other fantastic speakers.

Talks Include:

-Learn how MoMA are racing to reduce their carbon footprint 🇺🇸
- Discover the new climate change exhibition from NASA 🇺🇸
- Hear how the Royal Ontario Museum talks about sustainability 🇨🇦
- Learn how Miraikan have taken a green approach to exhibition design 🇯🇵
- Discover how Design Museum Gent turned rubbish into building materials 🇧🇪
- Hear about climate change conversations at the Powerhouse Museum 🇦🇺
- Learn how SEND students at National Museums NI turned a patch of grass into a biodiversity hotspot 🇬🇧
- Explore the Humanity exhibition at Iziko Museums of South Africa 🇿🇦
- Discover how National Museum of Singapore explored sustainability 🇸🇬

+ Much, much more...

Visit the URL here https://lnkd.in/gEj63qUf

International Council of Museums (ICOM) announces concrete plans to engage with sustainable development goals

Exciting news in the world of sustainability from ICOM

This week, the International Council of Museums announced they are launching the ICOM Award for Sustainable Development Practice in Museums. Coming on the heels of the creation of two new International Committees, the Committee on Museums and Sustainable Development (SUSTAIN) and the Committee for Social Museology (SOMUS), the ICOM Award is the first global award to recognize initiatives and innovative museum practices in sustainable development. This award is the first to be addressed to all members, and is designed as a learning opportunity and a way of strengthening international engagement towards sustainable development. Entries are judged based on the Sustainable Development goals and Agenda 2030, prioritizing People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership.  

ICOM hopes that the initiative will “reinforce its commitment to Agenda 2030... and inspire an accelerated development of sustainable practices leading to long term changes for the museum sector and our common future”. 

ICOM was also present at COP28 last week, organizing panel discussions on culture and greening education and acting as a civil society representative at the High-Level Ministerial Dialogue, where the body advocated for a framework that recognised culture-based climate action. This framework, the Join Work Decision on Culture and Climate Action, was successfully adopted, although its official adoption will take place at COP29. 

Museums and Societal Collapse will be essential reading for museum professionals working in museums and galleries, as well as for cultural and civil society organizations around the world. It will also be an essential reading for academics and students of Museum and Heritage Studies, Gallery Studies, Heritage Management, and Arts Management.

Follow the links listed for more information on ICOM’s new International Committees, the Sustainable Development Award, and ICOM’s participation in COP28.

Museums and Societal Collapse explores the implications of societal collapse from a multidisciplinary perspective and considers the potential museums have to contribute to the reimagining and transitioning of a new society with the threat of collapse.

In a hard-hitting new work by Dr. Robert R. Janes, a Visiting Research Fellow at the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, Janes identifies the responsibility museums have to a world on the brink of collapse. Read the abstract below.

Arguing that societal collapse is underway, but that total collapse is not inevitable, Janes maintains that museums are well-positioned to mitigate and adapt to the disruptions of societal collapse. As institutions of the commons, belonging to and affecting the public at large, he contends that museums are both responsible and capable of contributing to the durability and well-being of individuals, families, and communities, and enhancing societal resilience in the face of critical issues confronting our species. Within the pages of this groundbreaking book, Janes demonstrates how museums and their staff, as key civic resources with ethical responsibilities, can examine the meaning and value of their work, how that work is organized and managed, and to what end. This is a call to action, demonstrating how museums can move the conversation about collapse into society at large.

Museums and Societal Collapse will be essential reading for museum professionals working in museums and galleries, as well as for cultural and civil society organizations around the world. It will also be an essential reading for academics and students of Museum and Heritage Studies, Gallery Studies, Heritage Management, and Arts Management.

For more information please follow this link. A summary of the work, crafted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, can be found here.

25% discount using the discount code FMSC3*

ICOM is preparing an issue of Museum International on the theme of Museums, sustainability and sustainable development (Vol. 74, Nº 297 – 298).

All proposals submitted will be assessed for suitability, and if chosen, the subsequent articles will go through a double-blind peer review process. The issue is expected to be published, in collaboration with Taylor&Francis/Routledge, in December 2023.

As environmental protestors bring their activism into major international art galleries, the museum sector cannot ignore the many pressing social, economic and environmental issues affecting humanity and the biosphere. What is needed to make a sustainable museum in the 21st century? How can museums actively contribute to sustainable communities? Is our own museum practice implicated in actions that may harm the planet? How can museums participate in, and even lead, the transformations necessary for both humans and our planet to survive and thrive?

For more information please follow this link.

A dynamic group of Sydney's cultural institution staff stepping up to advance climate outreach and sustainability practice. Sharing inspiration and ideas through monthly meetings and talks, group members are helping their institutions to take action.

Contact: SCICAgroup@gmail.com

Stemming the Tide

Global Strategies for Sustaining Cultural Heritage Through Climate Change

THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2020–FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 2020

Watch online, NOW!

Stemming the Tide: https://americanart.si.edu/research/symposia/2020/stemming-the-tide

The Natural History Museum in London has a new mission: to create advocates for the planet. Read about their revolutionary initiatives here:

NHM’s declaration of a plantary emergency
NMH’s new vision and mission, strategy to 2031

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/our-vision-strategy.html

The Climate Museum have announced they have been awarded a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to establish two humanities fellowships. The two fellows will work with Climate Museum staff and partners to develop public programs exploring the many ways in which the climate crisis is a social justice crisis. As always, their goal with this programming will be to inspire broad public engagement and action. Applications due March 15, Fellowships commencing 1 August 2020.

• Post-Doctoral Mellon Fellowship Application   

• Pre-Doctoral Mellon Fellowship Application      

Founder of Curating Tomorrow, Henry McGhie, has produced a new and publicly accessible how-to guide for museums, galleries, the cultural sector and their partners - intending to help empower all in contributing to the united Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Download your own copy of Museums and the Sustainable Development Goals today

This is an Australian project created by Wind and Sky Productions for Culture Victoria, the public face of the Victorian Cultural Network. It was developed in collaboration with three Victorian Cultural organisations: Museums Victoria, the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria and Parks Victoria.

Already in the state of Victoria in South-eastern Australia we are seeing evidence of climate change. In the natural world, coastal waters are warming and bringing tropical marine species to our bays. Desert animals are migrating to Victoria. Alpine winters are changing, potentially pushing species closer to the margins. In the world of humans, island and coastal dwellers deal with the tangible and intangible impacts of loss as sea levels rise, bush dwellers live with an increased risk of life-threatening fires and  farmers cope with the new normal of longer droughts.

This Collections and Climate Change digital story explores how Victoria’s scientific and cultural collections help us understand climate change. It looks at how the information can help us understand and prepare for a hotter, drier, more inundated world.

The story is made up of a short documentary film and twenty-one examples highlighting how botanical records, geological and biological specimens and living flora and fauna provide a crucial resource for scientists striving to map continuity, variability and change in the natural world. And it helps us rethink the significance of some of Victoria’s cultural collections in the face of a changing climate.

https://cv.vic.gov.au/stories/land-and-ecology/collections-and-climate-change/

https://cv.vic.gov.au/stories/land-and-ecology/collections-and-climate-change/documentary-story-collections-and-climate-change/

For more information on this project, please contact: Lucinda Horrocks, Producer, Wind & Sky Productions Pty Ltd. Eemail: lucinda@windsky.com.au | web: http://windsky.com.au/

Submitted by Kate Phillips, Senior Curator, Science Exhibitions, Museums Victoria kphillips@museum.vic.gov.au

Image: Frogs and Bushfire is one of the stories in the online Collections and Climate Change Project. Source: Museums Victoria. Photographer: David Paul

The Australian Museum, Sydney, has just posted a statement on climate change, with clear commitments encompassing research, education, outreach and infrastructure. “Over the next three years the AM will commit to developing a leadership role supporting climate action. It will accelerate its programme for sharing with the public the important science and facts around climate change and its impacts on the community. It will ensure that the work of AM researchers, educators, communicators and exhibition content developers will share deeper understandings of climate change so as to foster public engagement in the issues. Moreover, the AM also has a corporate commitment to working toward sustainable practices within the Museum’s operations and infrastructure.”
”The AM’s collections span both the natural and human worlds, with 21 million items representing the combined natural and cultural environments of not only Australia but also the Pacific and all parts of the globe. The Museum is ideally placed to demonstrate climate change impacts on biota and people through exhibitions, education programs, outreach in the wider community, and online resources.”
Read the full statement

The Climate Museum presents Climate Speaks, a citywide youth spoken word competition and training program dedicated to themes of climate change and social justice.

Students will engage with climate issues through spoken word at workshops in March and April. They will then submit original poems to be selected for the semi-final round. Semi-finalists will receive performance training and mentoring before performing their pieces for judges. Finalists will take the stage in June for a live performance. Learn more at climatespeaks.org.
From: The Climate Museum, New York www.climatemuseum.org

mainstreaming the SDGs and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change

Morien Rees (Varanger Museum, Oslo, Norway) is leading the International Council of Museums Working Group on Sustainability, composed of museum professionals around the world who have been actively committed to addressing issues of sustainability in the museum and cultural heritage sectors. The working group is focusing on how to mainstream the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) included in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change across its range of activities.

The Working Group will be guided by the three related moral imperatives: satisfying human needs, ensuring social justice and respecting environmental limits.The Working Group’s mandate also includes supporting ICOM members and their member museums to contribute constructively in upholding the SDGs and towards climate change adaptation and mitigation.

The ICOM Working Group on Sustainability will consider different approaches to aspects of sustainability. It will consider the museums’ potential roles in cross-sectorial sustainability initiatives: through their collections, as information resources, as communicators, as educators, as facilitators, as activists and advocates, and as users of natural resources. Read more

The Working Group is expected to deliver its recommendations in 2019, at the 25th ICOM Triennial Conference which will take place in Kyoto, Japan.

ICOM Kyoto 2019

Read more

April 12th and 13th, 2019

Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, UK 

https://www.bishopg.ac.uk/climatechange/

Education in all its forms plays a crucial role, globally and locally, in engaging and empowering people to act to alleviate the impacts of the climate change. Even though education is a key element which can be deployed in fostering climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, there is a paucity of events where a special focus to education is given. In order to fill in this gap, the International Symposium on Climate Change and the Role of Education is being organised by Bishop Grosseteste University (UK), the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (Germany) and the International Climate Change Information Programme. 

This symposium is aimed at those working in, or concerned with, education and climate change. It provides an opportunity to showcase projects, approaches and activities that investigate or utilise education as a means to mitigate or adapt to climate change. The conference also highlights the pedagogical approach museums and galleries utilize in discussing science, which arguably happens more than in classrooms. 

Follow this link to register for the symposium: https://www.bishopg.ac.uk/climatechangeregistration/

Any questions related to registration and accommodation, contact:

Bronwen Robson, School Professional Services Officer, Bishop Grosseteste University bronwen.robson@bishopg.ac.uk 

Sarah Sutton, a climate change and sustainability consultant to museums and other public institutions, has contributed to 'Museum 2040' with her take on the future of Museums in relation to climate change and sustainability by exploring her own greatest frustration, and greatest hope on the issue.

Read the full article at the American Alliance of Museums below. 

The 2017 Museums & Climate Change Network workshop is published below:

The aim of the July 2017 workshop at the Australian Museum is to establish effective ways for museums around the world to collaborate on engaging hearts and minds, creating climate-active citizens, and influencing policy around climate change.  Museums and Climate Change Network members were invited.

This was a participatory, roll-your-sleeves-up workshop. The day had plenty of time for small group work directed at sharing and growing ideas and establishing clear steps forward. Numbers were kept low to keep the discussion moving.

There were presentations from several local and international speakers, including Miranda Massie, Director of The Climate Museum, New York.

Session One:

Session Two:

Powerpoint presentation by Sipiriano Nemani, Director Fiji Museum snemani@govnet.gov.fj for the “Museums Collaborating around Climate Change” workshop, Australian Museum, July 2017

Jay Sterling Gregg, a senior researcher and lecturer at the Technical University of Denmark in the Climate Change and Sustainable Development program, created Climagination as a platform for engaging people in the climate issue by inspiring them to get in touch with their imagination and creativity. The ultimate goal is to create a climate museum in Copenhagen.

http://climagination.org

The launch of the Cities Power Partnership in Australia – 35 councils have already joined up to dramatically curb emissions and increasing their renewable energy capacity:

Cities Power Partnership

Catch their cheering and downright funny vid: