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 kinda get the point, but why stop in the 1800's
360 million years ago:
source: https://euroweeklynews.com/2026/01/24/completely-different-form-of-life-discovered-by-researchers-in-scotland/
Things were much better back in my day. Everything went to hell around the Triassic. You kids wouldn't know, with your phones and your tablets and opposable thumbs.
EDIT: That was a good read btw
I feel as guilty as the next human for things out of my hands, but even I won't take blame for what happened before an apocalyptic meteor strike! 😜
Neat article though! I love the Devonian.