The shifting baseline of normal

It's interesting that when the rich and powerful talk about "back to normal," they don't include life expectancy. pic.twitter.com/9A5X5b9n0J

— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) September 22, 2022

CEO of Pfizer tests positive *TWICE* within 40 days. This is the new normal our public officials are creating by only focusing on pharmaceuticals and giving up on source control with masks and not urgently implementing clean indoor air with filtration and ventilation. pic.twitter.com/7KmXU4XGnJ

— Joaquín Beltrán (@joaquinlife) September 24, 2022

Another climate/covid overlap is people are growing accustomed to a fucked up baseline. We've normalized mass death and mass infection in the US. What used to shock has become another day. Similarly, as anamolous weather has become the norm we remark on it less

— Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis (@KendraWrites) September 25, 2022

“Covid is here to stay, so are we just supposed to keep masking some places FOREVER?”

I mean, if the choice is between that or mass death and disability… yes?

Has humanity really lost all ability to adapt? Because that doesn’t bode well for the climate crisis… 😕

— Stephanie Tait ♿️ (@StephTaitWrites) September 25, 2022

Shifting baseline is a known phenomenon in ecology that’s led to / accompanied complacency with the collapse of the salmon population, for example. I didn’t really think people would adopt a new baseline for wildfires and drought and flooding but I guess I should have expected it 🤷‍♀️ People *really* hate making changes to their own life — and admitting when things aren’t working — and they’ll accept a *lot* before they’ll acknowledge the need for drastic change.