On a sweltering day recently, I found myself in need of an indoor activity for me and my six kids. Living near the nation’s capital has its perks, chief among them, the Smithsonian museums. So, we headed into D.C. for a dose of air conditioning and culture.
As we walked in, we were greeted by a relic from the pandemic era: a sign listing ‘recommended’ health and safety measures like masking, social distancing, and sanitizing, straight out of 2021, when the museums finally reopened after more than a year of COVID-19 closures.
Our 4-year-old chose the destination: the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, specifically to see the dinosaur bones and dioramas. But we quickly got more than we bargained for. A large section of the exhibit is devoted not to the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs — but to climate change.
MUSEUM STAFF LEAVES ‘MONA LISA’ FANS HIGH AND DRY AS LOUVRE SHUTS DOWN WITHOUT WARNING
This wasn’t surprising. We’ve come to expect ideological hectoring at the Smithsonians. At the National Zoo, it often feels like for every exhibit about an animal’s habitat or diet, there’s a parallel one warning that it’s going extinct because of climate change.