Such a helpful way to think about our assumptions of what is the norm. Thank you. It's flexible, also. I've been reading parents and teachers talking about their kids' assumptions that nothing ever gets better environmentally, because smog reductions, and ozone hole regeneration, and Great Lakes cleanups happened before their time. Learning that the baseline has sometimes shifted in a good direction can give us hope.
Thanks for turning this around and showing a way to home in on hope, too. It reminds of a scholar I admire who directed her students to the DOCUMERICA project to show the state of the environment at the time the EPA was started. If you haven't seen that project, you might enjoy it: https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2009/spring/documerica.html. It speaks directly to your point.
Such a helpful way to think about our assumptions of what is the norm. Thank you. It's flexible, also. I've been reading parents and teachers talking about their kids' assumptions that nothing ever gets better environmentally, because smog reductions, and ozone hole regeneration, and Great Lakes cleanups happened before their time. Learning that the baseline has sometimes shifted in a good direction can give us hope.
Thanks for turning this around and showing a way to home in on hope, too. It reminds of a scholar I admire who directed her students to the DOCUMERICA project to show the state of the environment at the time the EPA was started. If you haven't seen that project, you might enjoy it: https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2009/spring/documerica.html. It speaks directly to your point.