As global warming heats up the planet and debates about how to address it, the American Museum of Natural History takes on this sizzling topic with a newly opened exhibit.

Climate Change: The Threat to Life and A New Energy Future, goes into great depth while explaining the causes, effects and solutions surrounding global warming. The exhibit’s interactive displays involved every person who walked through them, helping them to understand what a devastating situation global warming is becoming.

A display with falling rain and fake lightning explained how there has been a 100-percent increase in storms due to warmer waters created by the heating of the earth. In turn, these storms have resulted in damage to land, people and economies. Another effect of warmer waters is less absorption of carbon dioxide, or CO2. The colder the water, the more CO2 can be absorbed, which means a cleaner and better atmosphere. Warmer waters can translate to higher CO2 levels, which damage our atmosphere.

Another aspect of Climate Change includes a display on the wall showing cities all over the world where temperatures have been rising the most: those with large populations. For the first time, humans can truly see that the causes of global warming are from people and the pollutants they release. Cars, unclean sources of energy such as coal and wasteful use of materials are all contributing to the increase in the degrading atmosphere.

From the earth’s rising temperatures, many negatives effects are now showing. Glaciers are melting, causing a rise in sea levels that endangers thousands of cities along coastal lands. Wondering how this may affect you one day? A particularly striking display in Climate Change shows what New York City would look like if the sea levels rose: half the city would be under water!

What could we do to prevent this from occurring? Well, of course, we could build expensive walls and dams to block the water from flowing into the streets of the Big Apple, but why spend all that money when we could all start now to help save the earth?

A few simple options include:

- consuming less plastic water bottles
- reusing the same bottle instead of throwing away up to three or four plastic water bottles every day
- using more efficient modes of transportation; hybrid cars or even just carpooling to school and work could help to reduce the amounts of CO2 we emit into the air

The last part of Climate Change encourages hope and change, showing multiple options to help slow the process of global warming. We need to start using cleaner sources of energy and start to reduce our dependence on coal and oil. Using wind turbines to produce energy is just one form of a cleaner energy plan. We could also invest in hydropower, or water-based power, for clean energy and solar power for heating.

On a personal level, Climate Change opened my eyes to more than just rising temperatures from global warming. Its interactive displays also made it easier to understand global warming. I found this exhibit to be successful in delivering its point and need for change.

Alexis Kalina is a high school senior. Climate Change is on view at the American Museum of Natural History through August 16, 2009.

Photo: Rising water levels are projected onto an architectural model of a flooded Lower Manhattan to show a sea-level rise of 10 to 16 feet above current levels. It is a dramatic reminder of scientists’ prediction that warming could cause portions of the Greenland and Western Antarctic ice sheets to melt, in which case one out of every 10 people worldwide— those who live near sea level— could be affected.