Climate change and environmental crisis directly impacts our community and the lives of millions around the world.
As part of our Climate + Environment initiative, PEM is hosting special exhibitions and programs about our changing relationship to the natural world to spark conversation, motivate action and inspire creative solutions.
What we’ve done
- PEM was awarded the inaugural Mass Save Climate Leader® Award for energy efficiency in October 2022.
- PEM’s current efforts to reduce CO2 emissions will have the equivalent of recharging nearly 1 billion smartphones.
- Partnering with the city and local organizations for the annual Preservation in Changing Climate: Salem Conference. Previously hosted the 2021, 2022, and 2023 conferences
- Initiated the Climate + Environment Ideators in 2021. This museum-wide staff group meets regularly to share information, discuss new opportunities and propose ideas to help make PEM a more sustainable and climate-forward institution.
- UMass Amherst native bee expert concluded PEM’s historic Ropes Mansion Garden has a wide and varied bee population, which illustrates a healthy example of how people and pollinators can co-exist and aid one another.
- During annual “Cut Down Day” at Ropes Mansion, which prepares the garden for winter, PEM’s head gardener harvested milkweed seeds and sent packages to the Save Our Monarchs and the Monarch Watch foundations, which help endangered monarch butterflies.
There’s lots more to come
We hope you’ll join us as we learn together, exploring topics like preserving biodiversity, environmental justice, coastal vulnerability and more. Check back here for upcoming climate-focused events, guest speakers and exhibitions.
Follow along on social media using #PEMClimate
Related exhibitions
Cultivating Hope, Healing and Courage with Jane Goodall
Artist Conversation
Artist Silvia López Chavez discusses her artwork, Undercurrent.
Climate + Environment Talk
Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Elizabeth Kolbert highlights key issues in the climate crisis and reads from her latest book, Under a White Sky. Then listen to a conversation with Kolbert, New Yorker artist Edward Koren and photographer Stephen Gorman.
Climate + Environment Talk
Brazilian field ecologist Dr. Marcia Macedo is committed to finding science-based solutions to complex challenges facing the Amazon rainforest. Dr. Macedo shares her unique view of the Amazon and speaks to important climate-forest interactions in the region. She is joined by soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause to explore the intersection of her research and Dr. Krause's sound recordings captured in the heart of the Amazon.
Featured events
ECOC Lecture
Return to the Sky: How One Woman Helped Restore the Bald Eagle
Friday, March 7, 2025 from 7:45-9 pm
Drop-In Art Activity
Earth Kokedamas
1–3 pm Saturdays, Sundays and holiday Mondays in April
ECOC Lecture
Thoreau and the Birds of Concord
Friday, April 4, 2025 from 7:45-9 pm
April School Vacation Week
Becoming an Eco Hero!
Monday, April 21 from 10:30 am–3 pm, Thursday, April 24, Friday, April 25 from 10:30 am–4 pm
Keep exploring
