With extra time on my hands in London, I visited the Natural History Museum today with my friend Morgan Curtis, who is biking to the Paris talks from the United States.

I was shocked to find that the main atrium of the museum was sponsored by non other than mining giant Rio Tinto. I shouldn’t have been that surprised, then, to find a rather factually inaccurate depiction of climate change in the subsequent exhibit:

That question mark is loaded – it implies that there is uncertainty with regards to the “reality” of global warming. Of course, there are so many uncertainties with climate research, as there is with all scientific research. But these certainties are more related to things like the range of safe parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, or the best mitigation plan moving forward. Still, opinions abound as to the best means of adaptation for communities impacts by climate change. Yet, there is no uncertainty relating to whether or not global warming is happening at a rapid scale, or whether or not human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels are to blame.

The NHM exhibit didn’t make this distinction, however. In fact, it gave the impression that volcano eruptions are contributing just as much to current climate change as human activities, placing them side by side. It also implied that carbon dioxide is “good” – it insulates the planet, after all!

What’s worse, a nearby panel placed coal next to an exhibit on the pyramids – suggesting that extracting and burning coal is an endeavour as noble as building the pyramids. I would personally argue that solar energy is more noble!

Clearly, we still have a ways to go when it comes to science communication around climate change!