The Smithsonian Institution, a tax-payer funded museum, modified the content of an exhibit on climate change in the Arctic to placate members of Congress and the Bush administration, according to Robert Sullivan, a former administrator at the museum. Sullivan was the associate director in charge of exhibitions at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The exhibit, “Arctic: A friend acting strangely,” was based partly on a report by federal scientists. It opened in April 2006
and closed in November that year, but its content remains available online. The exhibit focused on the Arctic’s shrinking ice and snow and how that may affect people and wildlife.
Sullivan charged that the official text of the exhibit was rewritten to cast doubt on the relationship between global warming and human activity, specifically industrial development and activity that produces so-called greenhouse gases. Officials also cut out scientists’ interpretation of research data, and altered graphs “to show that global warming could go either way,” Sullivan said.
“It just became tooth-pulling to get solid science out without toning it down,” said Sullivan, who resigned after 16 years at the Smithsonian.
Sullivan alleged that the changes were requested by then-museum director Cristian Samper and Samper’s boss, former Undersecretary for Science David Evans. Several scientists whose work was featured in the exhibit objected to the changes.
Global warming and capitalism
There is a general consensus in the scientific community that global warming and its ensuing climate change is primarily caused by carbon emissions created by capitalist industrial development. A major source of emissions comes from the energy industry and from automobiles.
The U.S. as a country is the biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the agreement among scientists about the causes of global warming, so-called global warming skeptics have been funded by energy companies. These “researchers” attempt to cast doubt on the causes and the seriousness of global warming.
Although the technology exists to significantly reduce carbon emissions, cuts in emissions mean lower profits for the energy and automotive industries.
Congress represents the interests of the capitalist class and not the interest of the majority of people on the planet. However, in order to remain in office, politicians need to be able to present a reasonable front to the majority even when they act against our interest. Thus, these politicians reference the alleged scientific controversy over global warming to justify their refusal to take meaningful action.
“I see it in some ways as similar to the sort of debate that has taken place with regard to the science of evolution,” said Professor Michael Mann, director of Pennsylvania State University’s Earth System Science Center. “Just as I would hope that the Smithsonian would stand firmly behind the science of evolution, it would also be my hope that they would stand firmly behind the science that supports influence on climate. Politically, they may be controversial, but scientifically they are not.”
