r/art_for_change

Shifting Baseline Syndrome is one of the major reasons ecological collapse and species extinction are often widely underestimated.

Each generation grows up accepting the environment they inherited as “normal", forgetting how abundant wildlife, forests, rivers, and ecosystems once were.

>As biodiversity declines gradually over decades, society adapts to lower & lower ecological baselines instead of recognising the scale of loss and it's tragic consequences.

For centuries, dolphins and other large aquatic species were common in rivers and coastal waterways, but now, these waterbodies are considered too polluted or urbanised for them. Historical records describe dolphins in the canals and lagoon systems around Venice, while the Ganges river dolphin once thrived across much of the Ganges-Brahmaputra river system.

Today, many people view heavily degraded rivers as “normal” like the Seine, simply because they never experienced these ecosystems in their older abundance. What previous generations would have considered ecological collapse is now often mistaken for a healthy or restored environment because collective ecological memory has faded.

However, during Covid years, we saw these vectors changing due to our lack of pressure on environment and that lead to the flora & fauna recovering from our damage and pollution.

Source:

>Pic 1: @emilyebuchananc on Instagram

>Pic 2: @weareparklanelandscapes on Instagram

SBS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_baseline

Dolphin in Venice: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/06/mimmo-bottlenose-dolphin-seen-near-st-marks-square-inspires-venice-rescue-effort

Records of Gangetic Freshwater dolphins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganges_river_dolphin

Global coral bleaching event 23-25: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%E2%80%932025_global_coral_bleaching_event

r/art_for_change

An interesting find from the local food box.

figured it would be most appreciated here

Shifting Baseline Syndrome

A Mother’s Love in the Age of Surveillance and State Violence

When Justice Is Bad for Business, They Change the Subject.

Roger Peet’s Data Center Disasters cuts through the AI hype: the cloud still burns power, drains water, and leaves real people paying the cost.

Claude Monet turns a street into a wave of flags, crowds, and national feeling. Painted after war and political instability, this is not just a celebration. It is a city trying to show itself alive again.

A statue that promised freedom while the city hid its ghosts.

Banksy said more about the housing crisis with crabs than most politicians do with speeches.

Francisco Goya - The Third of May 1808 (painted 1814). Probably one of the first times war wasn't painted to look heroic or glorious.

Joseph Keppler’s 1889 cartoon “The Bosses of the Senate” shows wealthy monopolists towering over U.S. senators, criticizing how trusts and corporate money influenced American politics during the Gilded Age. The people’s entrance door is closed. All of this rings true still.

The classroom teaches the letter of the law, and the window teaches the power that tears it apart every day.

The wall says what the city is too tired to whisper.