photo by Keira Heu-Jwyn Chang
California Academy of Sciences
12.30.2008
loud and clear
The California Academy of Sciences reopened its fantastic and gigantically geeky doors in Golden Gate Park back in September and at long last, i finally made it there today.
there’s more to see than a day can hold and the crowds were packed in to full capacity from screaming toddlers to white-haired totterers. but what struck me most is that while embracing all of the same fields of natural science, this is no museum of natural history, quietly cataloging away. this is institution with an agenda. writ large everywhere you look, the message is clear, “we are going save the planet, and we’re going to start by convincing you that it needs to be saved.”
with signage bigger than my head, and hands-on exhibits that do everything from measure your carbon footprint to shade a polar bear’s last failing iceberg from the sun, it echoed: global warming, climate change, extinction, do something!
as a confessed tree-hugger, i admit that i like this sort of brazen get-off-your-ass-and-do-something-about-it approach. natural science includes the human animal and we tend to forget that. change starts with awareness and choice.
let’s start with getting our food and products from more environmentally responsible companies.
right now.
seriously, go.