The latest report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change used language that was said to be the starkest ever. The panel warned with new urgency that continued emissions of greenhouse gases threaten severe consequences for the planet, affecting people and the ecosystems that sustain them.
“Without additional mitigation efforts beyond those in place today, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts globally,” the report said.
Yet these dire predictions appear to have changed few minds. To climate change deniers, the doomsday-like warnings are an increasingly shrill expression of desperation by a science community that can’t make its case. Indeed, in the same week as the report, American voters rallied to the Republican Party, home to many who dismiss the large scientific consensus as a political creation.
In truth, the threat of climate change has too few believers, even if the world scientific community is in general agreement. And if ever there was proof that a prophet is not without honor except in his own town, it was the Sunday story by the Post-Gazette’s Chris Potter on the state of climate change exhibits in local science-education facilities.
The Carnegie Science Center makes no mention of it in its displays. The Carnegie Museum of Natural History has failed to update its 1983 “Polar World” exhibit with news of ice melting in polar seas. Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens does not specifically mention climate change, although it does deal with sustainability issues. Honorable exceptions to such omissions are the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium and the National Aviary, which do address the issue.
As the Post-Gazette found, it’s not as if scientists at these institutions question mankind’s role in global warming — they don’t. They just haven’t done enough to highlight the issue — for whatever reason, including a need to please local audiences and some of their sponsors.
Climate change is a global problem, but the global scientific consensus on this issue could do with some local help. Education starts at home.
First Published: November 9, 2014, 5:00 a.m.
