REMEMBER NORMAL?
While visiting the Museum of Unnatural Disasters in Washington, D.C., visitors came face to face with the rising cost of climate change in an immersive exhibit that brought survivors of wildfires, floods, and extreme heat to the heart of the nation’s capital.
The exhibit, a project of the Climate Action Campaign in partnership with the Center for American Progress, Climate Power, and Extreme Weather Survivors, took visitors inside the lived experience of survivors of some of the most devastating climate disasters of recent years, including catastrophic flooding in central North Carolina, record-breaking extreme heat across the Southwest, and the LA wildfires of 2025.
Through photographs, artifacts, personal testimonies, and interactive displays, the museum makes viscerally real what headlines and data points don’t always convey: Climate change is not a future threat. It is destroying lives right now.
Events during the museum’s run featured climate disaster survivors, experts, members of Congress, public health leaders, and other advocates. Programming focused on the health impacts of climate change, how extreme heat is becoming more dangerous and deadly, the economic pain inflicted by climate disasters, and the consequences of inaction that puts people in harm’s way.
As the climate crisis gets worse, it’s essential that people know the risks we face. Extreme weather can happen to anyone, anywhere, and it is. The Museum of Unnatural Disasters created the space for visitors to put themselves in the shoes of survivors, to imagine what they would save if given only minutes to flee a fire or a hurricane, and to engage in real conversations about the changes we must see in order to make sure people are prepared and protected. We must talk about the climate crisis if we have any hope of fighting it.
Stay tuned for where the Museum of Unnatural Disasters travels to next.
