Following decades of ignored carbon-cycle models and unread ocean acidification reports, the Natural History Museum has formally updated its climate communication strategy to threatening the public with a 23-foot prehistoric plesiosaur. The new “Jurassic Oceans” exhibition abandons standard scientific warnings about marine ecosystems in favor of a methodology based entirely on giant, terrifying teeth.
LONDON — The strategic shift comes after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported record ocean heat for the fifth consecutive year, a metric that generated no new regulatory action. In response, curators have assembled the skeletal remains of the ocean’s former apex predators, publicly floating the possibility that warming waters could bring back the T-rex of the sea in a desperate bid to achieve the emission reductions the 2015 Paris Agreement could not.
We recognize the museum's concerns regarding the 23-foot apex predators that once stalked the warming seas, which is why Chevron is committed to a phased, voluntary transition away from being eaten by them by 2050.
Museum interpretation manager Kate Whittington noted the plesiosaur’s long neck allowed it to sneak up on prey before its flippers created a disturbance in the water—a hunting technique scientists hope will finally resonate with policymakers who have spent three decades sleeping through slide decks about coral bleaching. Representatives from COP29 are reportedly already drafting a communiqué to acknowledge the plesiosaur without formally committing to phase out the fossil fuels warming its former habitat. The next round of offshore lease sales by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is scheduled for Tuesday.
ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies have jointly sponsored a new wing of the exhibition, featuring an interactive display clarifying that the marine reptiles actually died out due to natural, cyclical changes in the Earth’s climate. The museum’s corporate funding disclosures will be published just ahead of the North American fire season.