Shifting Baseline Syndrome

A note on the text: A trophic pyramid is a basic representation of how energy moves through biological communities - how it accumulates, transforms, dissipates. The base of energy is made of producers, and the top is generally made of consumers. When energy is transferred up the trophic pyramid, most of it is lost as heat energy. Life. <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/TrophicWeb.jpg/800px-TrophicWeb.jpg" style="width:700px;"> The base of the pyramid is populated by organisms called autotrophs - the primary producers of the ecosystem. Think trees, mosses, algal blooms. They spin water and sunlight into energy. They breathe out oxygen and vivify the sky. <img src="https://storage.needpix.com/rsynced_images/court-oak-2314686_1280.jpg" style="width:700px;"> All other organisms in the ecosystem are classified as consumers called heterotrophs, which either directly or indirectly depend on the primary producers for food energy. Kind of like an omnivore. But autos rely on hets for nutrient-fixing and other errands. It's not so much a hierarchy as it is a shifting network of interdependence and exchange. <img src="https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/pictures/260000/velka/wild-rabbit-15261420456hQ.jpg" style="width:700px;"> Predators are usually at the top of the pyramid. They get energy from eating the bottom layers. As a general rule, an energy system can only function sustainably if it has the support of a larger base of producers, and a relatively small amount of predators at its apex. <img src="https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2020/04/02/04/14/hawk-4993325_960_720.jpg" style="width:700px;"> [[Continue]] <audio src='https://www.zapsplat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/sound-effects-sound-spark/sound_spark_Flatwoods_Scrub_Rock_Springs_Nature_Forest_General_Ambience_01.mp3?_=5' autoplay>

Do you say: [[Baaa.]] or: [[Hello.]] <img src='https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1585500082343-f9809a174527?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=eyJhcHBfaWQiOjEyMDd9&auto=format&fit=crop&w=666&q=80'width="700px"> <audio src='https://www.zapsplat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/sound-effects-audio-hero/audio_hero_Goat_DIGIVC2-92.mp3?_=4' autoplay>

listen, it’s [[the purr of a flute]]

listen, it’s the purr of a flute [[from the lips of a dryad]]

listen, it’s the purr of a flute from the lips of a dryad [[whipping through the canopy]]

listen, it’s the purr of a flute from the lips of a dryad whipping through the canopy [[amongst the trees draped in green]]

listen, it’s the purr of a flute from the lips of a dryad whipping through the canopy amongst the trees draped in green <img src='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Lake_Chisholm_Forest_Reserve%2C_Tasmania_24.jpg/800px-Lake_Chisholm_Forest_Reserve%2C_Tasmania_24.jpg?width=1300&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=0c4bf744415a3abda70a55d368910802&auto=format&fit=crop&w=750&q=80' width='700px'> [[Go forward two hundred years]]

a flock of sheep now roams the moors [[where there once were tangled wildernesses]]

a flock of sheep now roams the moors where there once were tangled wildernesses [[hills now shorn to grass, marshes dredged and tamed]]

a flock of sheep now roams the moors where there once were tangled wildernesses hills now shorn to grass, marshes dredged and tamed [[the bottom fell out of the trophic pyramid of energy producers]]

Can androids dream of electric sheep? [[yes]] [[no]] [[maybe]] <img src='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6a/Legged_Squad_Support_System_robot_prototype.jpg/800px-Legged_Squad_Support_System_robot_prototype.jpg' width='700px'> <audio src='https://www.zapsplat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/sound-effects-pmsfx/PM_SFA2_2.mp3?_=2' autoplay>

Does the space colonizer dream of analog sheep? <img src='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Counting_sheep_-_geograph.org.uk_-_978640.jpg' width="700px"> [[Every night]] [[Never]] <audio src='https://www.zapsplat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/sound-effects-pmsfx/PM_SFA2_2.mp3?_=2' autoplay>

Does the colonizer dream of analog sheep? [[Every night]] [[Never]] <img src='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Counting_sheep_-_geograph.org.uk_-_978640.jpg' width="700px"> <audio src='https://www.zapsplat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/sound-effects-pmsfx/PM_SFA2_2.mp3?_=2' autoplay>

Every day, it is estimated that 1,500,000 sheep are killed for food. You are an android, dreaming of electric sheep. [[You count all the ghosts of sheep flying in the sky.]] [[You go for a drive.->Drive]] <audio src='https://www.zapsplat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/sound-effects-skyclad-sound/skyclad_sound_accent_rich_dark_airy_rumble_chord_sepulchrel_249.mp3?_=2' autoplay>

Every day, it is estimated that 1,500,000 sheep are killed for food. You are an android, dreaming of electric sheep. [[You count all the ghosts of sheep flying in the sky.]] [[You go for a drive.->Drive]] <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Cumulus_clouds_in_Russia._img_035.jpg/800px-Cumulus_clouds_in_Russia._img_035.jpg" style="width:700px;"> <audio src='https://www.zapsplat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/sound-effects-skyclad-sound/skyclad_sound_accent_rich_dark_airy_rumble_chord_sepulchrel_249.mp3?_=2' autoplay>

You count over a million - and fall asleep.

a flock of sheep now roams the moors where there once were tangled wildernesses hills now shorn to grass, marshes dredged and tamed the bottom fell out of the trophic pyramid of energy producers [[The sheep are asking you a question.->You can hear bleating.]] <img src="https://storage.needpix.com/rsynced_images/sheep-391482_1280.jpg" style="width:700px;"> <audio src='https://www.zapsplat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/sound-effects-three/animals_sheep_herd_walk_close_bleating_002.mp3' autoplay>

We speak sheeptalk here. Do you speak sheep? [[No, tell me how.]]

You listen and learn. The baa-ing throbs in your ears. You have no headphones, so you try to synthesise some music. [[You imagine a sound.]] <audio src='https://www.zapsplat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/sound-effects-audio-hero/audio_hero_Sheep_DIGIC08-40.mp3?_=3' autoplay>

You bleat out a long 'baa'. After a while, the baa-ing throbs in your ears. You have no headphones, so you try to synthesise some music. [[Imagine a sound.->You imagine a sound.]] <audio src='https://www.zapsplat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/sound-effects-sound-spark/sound_spark_Flatwoods_Scrub_Rock_Springs_Nature_Forest_General_Ambience_01.mp3?_=5' autoplay>

You remember going for a drive through the country - stopping at the petrol station to find swarms of insects splayed across the windscreen, barbequed in the grille of the car. When you get to the servo, you hop out. The fumes infiltrate your brain cells. You grab the window wiper from the bucket of suds. [[Where are the moths?]] <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/Convolvulus_hawk-moth_%28Agrius_convolvuli%29_2.jpg/800px-Convolvulus_hawk-moth_%28Agrius_convolvuli%29_2.jpg" style="width:700px;">

Generational amnesia is when knowledge is not passed down from generation to generation. For example, people may think of as ‘pristine’ wilderness, the wild places that they experienced during their childhood, but with every generation this baseline becomes more and more degraded. - Dr. E.J. Milner-Gulland [[Wilderness...]]

Nobody knows. As a species, we immediately forget what is lost and only see what exists right here, right now as the new normal. Every generation is experiencing huge shifts in what passes for a natural system. These changes have become more extreme over the last few generations. What we see as dead landscapes, our kids will see as natural and normal. There is a phrase for this and most of us these days suffer from it. It’s called Shifting Baseline Syndrome. - Mary Reynolds, former landscape designer [[You think maybe there is a creature who is old enough to remember.->Whales]]

In Alaska's North Slope, there are bowhead whales that are older than Moby Dick - some are said to be over 200 years old. [[Go back 200 years in the past]] <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Bowheads42.jpg" style="width:700px;">

It is said that whales were so populous in timtumili minanya that their songs filled the air at dusk. To paddle a boat across the river was to risk the blows of a whale fluke. timtumili minanya is known colonially as the River Derwent (meaning "clear water"). The river pools into leeawulenna ("sleeping water") or Lake St Clair, tumbles as freshwater through Southern lutruwita/Tasmania, and itches quietly toward the sea. [[Can you hear the whales?]] <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/14/Sunset_near_Opossum_Bay.jpg/1024px-Sunset_near_Opossum_Bay.jpg" style="width:700px;"> <audio src='https://www.zapsplat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/sound-effects-10157/zapsplat_animals_whales_humpback_underwater_distant_east_australia_august_choppy_water_movement_005_12307.mp3?_=2' autoplay>

It's silent. The thrum has died down, vibrations steadied, the rhythm muted. [[The silence takes generations to set in.->Generational Amnesia]]

The notion of wilderness as a purely unchanged space can in itself be a forgetting - a silencing. By classifying tracts of nature as 'pristine', we erase the storied networks of relationships between people and land. Ecologist David Bowman speculates on the role of Indigenous people 25,000–12,000 years ago in supporting endangered species with land management: 'were it not for the presence of Aboriginal people at the height of the last ice-age, the combined effect of fire and aridity may have been the coup de grace for many species that had barely survived previous glacial cycles.' [[Something is changing.->Shapes.]] <img src='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/East-West-Divide-peaks-20171121-014.jpg/799px-East-West-Divide-peaks-20171121-014.jpg'>

Now we see Country being devastated by ecocidal fire storms, the result of colonial greed and endemic mismanagement. I think of what my Nan would be saying now. When I was a kid in the 80s her and Mum would have long conversations about the state of the world while I sat in a sticky brown beanbag, listening in hard. Nan said, ‘the end of the world is coming’, because of the damage that colonisers were doing to our lands. ‘They don’t listen.’ - Paula Balla, a Wemba-Wemba & Gunditjmara visual artist, curator, writer, and lecturer. [[Do you remember the fires of 2020?]] <img src='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Bush_fire_at_Captain_Creek_central_Queensland_Australia..JPG' style='width:700px;'> <audio src='https://www.zapsplat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/cc0/nature_fire_big.mp3?_=2' autoplay>

Beneath the roar of the fires, over a thousand million animals died. More than 113 species were threatened with extinction as their homes burned. One of them is the [[Southern Corroboree Frog.]] <img src='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Southern_Corroboree_frog.jpg'>

We all know frogs go: [[La dee da dee da]] [[Croak]] [[Galumph]]