From Parklane Landscapes
Shifting Baseline Syndrome (SBS) is what happens when we forget how vibrant the natural world used to be. Each generation grows up with a more depleted environment and calls it "normal," simply because it's all they've ever known.
Think about walking through a park and thinking, "This seems healthy." But maybe 30 years ago that same park had twice as many birds, wildflowers, or insects. If you never saw that version, you don't feel the loss - and that quiet forgetting becomes the new baseline. Over time, we start accepting degraded ecosystems as normal.
Researchers warn that this shift lowers our expectations, increases our tolerance for decline, and reduces our urgency to protect what's left.
What helps:
Intergenerational conversations that reconnect us with what nature used to be.
Direct experiences with nature that sharpen our awareness of change.
Remembering (knowing) the past is the first step to restoring the future.
Not a sponsor, I don't think it's an AI graphic, and I think it has something important to say. Plus it does have an owl. We can't save our animals if we don't save them the spaces they need to thrive.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s in the US. It is so much better now.
All this nihilism makes everybody feel hopeless. Meanwhile, people have been working towards improving the environment and there have been real payoffs.
Not that we’re done, but the efforts we’ve made have had real tangible changes for the positive.
The impact that Ducks Unlimited made just can’t be overstated.
So did I. And I remember having to wash the bugs off the windshield at every stop for gas. I've seen the ecosystem on my front porch collapse in the last 5 years. And I have the healthiest yard on the block, maybe the entire hood.
There have been and will be tremendous wins, and this isn't intended as doomerism, so I hope that is clear. Almost everything I share is intended to inspire people that they can make a difference.
While many of us are doing our part to save things and help others recover, there are still tons of pressure to open preserve to mining or drilling or timber, efforts to roll back protections of waterways, and multiple other efforts to turn nature into cash and resources.
I just saw this post and it reminded me of all the times we discuss the Overton Window in politics, and this felt similar to how people can see our ecosystems. I really only expect this to get like 30 upvotes, but people have really taken an interest to it.