{"id":677,"date":"2019-05-06T17:54:47","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T17:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/?p=677"},"modified":"2019-05-06T17:54:47","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T17:54:47","slug":"a-shifting-baseline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/2019\/05\/06\/a-shifting-baseline\/","title":{"rendered":"A Shifting Baseline"},"content":{"rendered":"

On April 29th<\/sup>, Loren McClenachan from the Colby,\u00a0Environmental Studies Department, gave a lecture to our series titled, \u201cTurning Back the Clock on Ocean Declines: Using Historical Ecology in Marine Conservation\u201d. Shifting back from last week, the focus this week returned to the presence of the past in relationship to our planet and climate; addressing ways in which our perceptions have changed as we have continued to degrade the planet generation after generation. While Professor McClenachan is very focused on her research specifically concerning marine ecosystems and the changes that have been seen in these communities, she was able to take these ideas to a broader context for the purpose of the lecture, perpetuating the idea that a closer look at our past impact is crucial when addressing the present state of our global situation.<\/p>\n

Early on in the lecture, she presented comparison photographs of different ecosystems (both marine and other) and asked the crowd to reflect on which ecosystem they thought was likely in more distress. In some situations, this question was quite straightforward, however in others it came with a bit more confusion. Underwater ecosystems were a place where this happened specifically often, due to their existence out of the scope of the public eye. While this was interesting to consider, it became much clearer when she introduced the idea of a shifting baseline system.<\/p>\n

As Professor McClenachan explained, it is human nature to imagine that upon the first time viewing something, it is at that moment \u201cnatural\u201d although it may very well not be even close to its original natural state. Interestingly, it seems we encounter this almost all the time, even with things in our lives that we are incredibly familiar with. While this is a nice idea to consider, and also must come as a reminder that nearly everything we come into contact with is \u201cunnatural\u201d simply due to the passing of time, I think it brings into question a bigger idea (which Professor McClenachan also surfaced) of how to create policies that encourage the preservice of naturalism to the best of our abilities. As she noted, things also naturally change over time too, that is in itself \u201cnatural\u201d. However, the need for policy to encourage this true organic version of naturalism<\/p>\n

As noted by Professor McClenachan, in the past 240 years alone, the world has seen a 52% loss in coral reefs. While this is extreme loss and one that must be worked to improve, she stated that this is only one a small sliver of the problems plaguing our planet as we know it. Should we continue to let issues such as this degradation of the reefs continue, the version of \u201cnatural\u201d that are come to be known by upcoming generations will be so wildly different from what we see today that it will only perpetuate faster degradation due to the lack of understanding about what once existed. Proven by the research Professor McClenachan has been conducting surrounding fish size, etc. in Florida, we must come to understand that we need to constantly be in check with our perception surrounding the natural world as well as the harsh realities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 29th, Loren McClenachan from the Colby,\u00a0Environmental Studies Department, gave a lecture to our series titled, \u201cTurning Back the Clock on Ocean Declines: Using Historical Ecology in Marine Conservation\u201d. Shifting back from last week, the focus this week returned to the presence of the past in relationship to our planet and climate; addressing ways … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “A Shifting Baseline”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7023,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[443105],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7023"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":678,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions\/678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/presence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}