Global Warming

Steady Shift from Education to a Advocacy at Monterey Bay Aquarium: New Global Warming Demonstration

“I just want the world to give nature the opportunity to survive.” Bright pink Chilean flamingos. Green sea turtles. A living coral reef, teeming with neon fish. Visitors to the newest exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium will see the same wonderful creatures from around the world that have made the aquarium famous since 1984. [...]

“I just want the world to give nature the opportunity to survive.” Bright pink Chilean flamingos. Green sea turtles. A living coral reef, teeming with neon fish.

Visitors to the newest exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium will see the same wonderful creatures from around the world that have made the aquarium famous since 1984. But at the end, they won’t just wander off to the gift shop. They’ll be asked to type letters at kiosks advice their senators to pass a global warming law. They’ll be coaxed to take a oath to bike more and eat less meat.

The new exhibit — “Hot Pink Flamingos: Stories of Hope in a Changing Sea” — which opens today, is the first full-blown discussion of global warming at the Monterey aquarium. It also represents the most visible example yet of the powerful institution’s firm development in current years from education to advocacy.

“Is it OK for a museum or zoo or aquarium to have a point of view? I consider it is,” said Julie Packard, executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. “Our audience is asking for it. In this world of information overload, people are looking for a trusted source of information.”

As they wade into the controversial waters of clearing up global warming, other zoos and aquariums around the nation are closely watching Monterey, long regarded as one of the leading aquariums in the world. Also being watched is the San Diego Zoo, which on Friday opened a $1 million global-warming exhibit next to its polar bear habitat, complete with satellite photos showing Arctic ice steadily declining since 1989.

But starting in the mid-1990s, messages cheering visitors to change behavior, or become part of political efforts, began to appear.

In 1997, the aquarium built “Fishing for Solutions,” an exhibit prominence threats to the world’s fisheries, including overfishing and aquaculture. That year, aquarium leaders rewrote their restaurant menu, serving only sustainably caught fish.

Two years later, the aquarium released its famous “Seafood Watch” cards. A guide for shoppers and chefs, the wallet-sized cards rank common seafood red, yellow or green based on its environmental status. So far, 34 million cards and 200,000 iPhone applications have been sent world wide.
In 2004, the aquarium’s board changed its nonprofit status to allow lobbying.

Now, through its “Center for the Future of the Oceans,” the aquarium is advocating that California residents donate money to sea otter research via a voluntary checkoff box on state tax forms. It is urging the public to send an electronic form letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to support broad “no fishing zones,” or marine protected areas, off Southern California. And it’s asking members to contact the National Marine Fisheries Service to urge the agency to ban long lines and other fishing gear in the habitat of the endangered leatherback sea turtle.

previously, many scientists have avoided political debate, said Mike Murray, staff veterinarian at the aquarium. But they need to come out of their labs.

“We have an elected government. The only way they are going to react is if they hear from people,” Murray said. “It’s not enough to publish scientific papers. Most members of the public don’t read scientific journals. We need to make a connection with them.”

Urging people not to buy shrimp farmed in Asia is one thing. Tackling global warming is another.
Although every major scientific institution in the world that studies climate — from NASA to the World Meteorological Organization — all say the Earth’s climate is warming and humans are largely to blame, the issue has become heated fodder for talk radio and the basis for pitched political battles.
Last year, when the San Diego Zoo mailed calendars with a global-warming theme to 250,000 households, some people complained and threatened to drop memberships.

Joseph D’Aleo, a former meteorologist with the Weather Channel and prominent climate-change skeptic, told the San Diego Union-Tribune last week that the San Diego Zoo’s global-warming exhibit is “unfortunate.”

“The message that they are giving is that global warming is so important that we would spend $1 million to get you to listen, but in actual fact that money would have been better spent on doing other things,” D’Aleo said.

But Packard, a marine biologist, and other scientists at the Monterey aquarium say the science is clear and the public is constantly asking for advice. That’s why the new “Hot Pink Flamingos” exhibit not only explains how rising seas, ocean acidification and fisheries shifts threaten flamingos, coral reefs and penguins, but the exhibit also tells visitors about the whole thing from compact fluorescent bulbs to what to eat for dinner.