Natural History Museum

I'm in London en route to a business trip/holiday in Bruges - travelling by Eurostar through the Tunnel which is exciting my 2 and a bit year old son as he's read about it in an edition of "The Little Red Train". Anyway today we took him to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs and Daddy got 15 minutes in the "our environment today and tomorrow" exhibit.

I was quite disappointed in the cautious, almost apologetic tone of the displays. They had the usual stuff about "where does a trainer come from" and a very small exhibit on renewables, but nothing on the grand scale of the "history of the earth" stuff upstairs - nothing to really make you stop and think. In an era where the scientific consensus on climate change must be stronger than many 'accepted' scientific fields - Darwin's brooding presence may overlook the main hall, but there are plenty out there who can't and won't accept the theory of evolution - can they not be bolder? Or was it the fact the exhibit was sponsored by a major mining company?

Frustratingly the only bit that held my attention was a touch screen explanation of the General Circulation Models used by the IPCC to model the world's climate and the bloody thing wouldn't respond to my repeated jabbing. Oh well.

The fact that did make me stop and think was in a completely different section - the creepy crawlies. Did you know that a field of cows produces hundreds of tonnes of dung every year? And that dung beetles and other tiny workers recycle the whole lot? If they can do this in this small area, why can't we?!