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 just happened to step outside late one night as the mosquito truck rolled by, with a dopey sounding single stroke engine pumping out a cloud of spray.
It works, we don't have any skeeters in our neighborhood. We also don't have lightning bugs, labybugs, dragonflies, butterflies, bees, or most other flying critters. We do have wasps, though. Those bastards are indestructible apparently.
I was in Queens, NY, in THE city, no woods, pastures, or even parks around anywhere nearby, and yet there were lightning bugs everywhere we went at night. We can't have them where we live next to nature, but they have them in the city, because they don't spray clouds of POISON down their streets, "for the bugs."
I mentioned this to group of residents recently, and we all agreed said that we'd be happy to trade a few skeeter bites each summer if it meant we could see lightning bugs and butterflies again.
We used to get crop dust planes every so often in the nearby fields. I was biking by yesterday and keep having to brush off ladybugs (at 30kph) progress!
Bring it up at a City Council meeting or something if possible. Local politics is one of the few areas in America where democracy isn't entirely dead yet.
Also when it comes specifically to lightning bugs / lanternflies / fireflies (plus many other species), light pollution also has a significant negative effect on them. Clouds of poison sure aren't doing them any favor either though.
I was going to speak to the HOA, but it turns out its a county thing, and HOA couldn't stop it if they wanted to. I could try to go to the county commissioners, but it's highly MAGA, so if they figure out we're concerned about it, especially if they think we're concerned about the environment, they'll probably double the coverage.
laughs in southern US
...yeah my condolences
what the actual fuck? fumigating... outside? who approved this. That's one of the most idiotic ideas I've heard.
There have been skeeter trucks for decades, all my life. In areas with lots of skeeters, there is a fear of skeeter spread blood diseases, so control is considered imperative.