Why I think the new permanent “fix our broken planet” exhibition at london natural history museum is the worst gallery I’ve ever seen in a natural history museum.
It starts off with a sentence saying that we’re in a worldwide emergency and that we need all hands on deck to avert a catastrophe. Good start! Unfortunately, the closest any of the exhibits make to proposing anything impactful is by encouraging people to buy secondhand phones and reduce meat intake. By the way, the meat intake they recommend is to “try to eat meatless meals once a week”. Come on.
Next we get some stuff about medicinal plants and medicinal applications of different animal byproducts, something about rhinos being hunted too much and presentations on how mining is being made more eco-friendly.
And that’s basically it. Until you go and read the plaque with the funders on it, two of which are GSK, pharmaceutical giant and Orsted, an energy company. I didn’t know the rest but at that point I was too angry to sit there and google them.
So a world famous institution with 400 scientists use a “must act now” framing that just lands on individual consumer tweaks. Meanwhile the corporate names attached to the funding are exactly the sort of entities whose systemic practices dwarf anything a museumgoer’s lifestyle choices could offset. Huge gut punch.
Curious to read your thoughts.