Does New York Need a Climate Museum?

Does New York, or, for that matter, anyplace, need a Climate Museum? Not a planetarium, not a natural history museum, not a tsunami museum or a national weather museum, all of which we already have. I’m writing about a proposed Climate Museum, set for a development near the Javits Center in Manhattan and dedicated to what the museum calls “the climate crisis and solutions,” all linked to abandoning oil, coal, and natural gas in favor of who-knows-what — wind-powered iced patooties — and, of course, reparations. Does New York need a Climate Museum? Not to be monosyllabic, but the answer is no.

The Climate Museum has been with us for a few years but as a pop-up, or itinerant, art space at Governor’s Island, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and Rockefeller Center, on illuminated billboards, in storefronts in SoHo, and at lectures and indoctrination sessions for children. Two or three years ago, I saw David Opdyke’s Someday, all this, a Climate Museum montage of 400 old, color, 1920s tourist postcards that Opdyke altered to show skyscrapers burning, reptiles pulling bridges down, butterflies turned into monsters, and slogans such as “get into the ark.” I thought it was very cute atrocity propaganda.

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Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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Does New York, or, for that matter, anyplace, need a Climate Museum? Not a planetarium, not a natural history museum, not a tsunami museum or a national weather museum, all of which we already have. I’m writing about a proposed Climate Museum, set for a development near the Javits Center in Manhattan and dedicated to what the museum calls “the climate crisis and solutions,” all linked to abandoning oil, coal, and natural gas in favor of who-knows-what — wind-powered iced patooties — and, of course, reparations. Does New York need a Climate Museum? Not to be monosyllabic, but the answer is no.

The Climate Museum has been with us for a few years but as a pop-up, or itinerant, art space at Governor’s Island, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and Rockefeller Center, on illuminated billboards, in storefronts in SoHo, and at lectures and indoctrination sessions for children. Two or three years ago, I saw David Opdyke’s Someday, all this, a Climate Museum montage of 400 old, color, 1920s tourist postcards that Opdyke altered to show skyscrapers burning, reptiles pulling bridges down, butterflies turned into monsters, and slogans such as “get into the ark.” I thought it was very cute atrocity propaganda.