I don't want the future to be a museum - climate extinctions

Today I took my family to the museum here in Melbourne to see the Aztec exhibition. Reflections on that are for another time and another of my blogs. But for here I want to reflect upon what I saw in the impressive room where they have their taxidermied animals.

I really wanted to yell out lines from Psalm 104 "Lord, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all;the earth is full of Your possessions."

What I did do was raise my hands in the air. And then I walked over to the stuffed polar bear and apologised. Odd I know, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. In Ice, ice baby I looked at Arctic sea ice loss. We know this is having an impact on polar bear hunting. They may yet disappear in the wild.

And then it struck me, museums are awesome places of learning, where species past and present are on display. I'd just walked briefly through the dinosaur section. I don't want the museum to be the only place (zoos notwithstanding) where you can go and see the species on display. Sea level rise, ocean acidification, loss of habitat, rising temperatures shrinking cloud forests, declining rainfall, and so on. So many species could disappear in a warming world. If we can say with the Psalmist "Let the glory of the Lord endure forever; Let the Lord be glad in His works", then we can only assume he'll be just a little point out if we add more to the list of creatures God can no longer be glad in, to say nothing of ourselves and the many related issues.

Museums are a great place to visit, but I don't want to live in one.