When No One Remembers What The World Was Once Like, Will Anyone Care About Climate & The Environment?

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A potential consequence of widespread shifting baseline syndrome is lowered expectations for environmental quality that lead to unambitious conservation policies and programs. For example, should Denverites be content with the urban South Platte River as it is now — pretty, home to carp and occasional e-scooters? Or should we aim for a South Platte River so pollution-free that children can safely dunk their heads under? My baseline is the former, but Denver’s earliest settlers — and the people living in the region for millennia prior — would perhaps have been scandalized to see an unswimmable-river, considering the latter a baseline.

Climate change is tangibly underway. Without drastic and immediate action at the federal and international level, we have a long road ahead. Before the next generation’s expectation of our environment erodes, it’s worth taking stock — what’s our baseline? What version of the Centennial State should my baby neighbor fight for one day? Because it shouldn’t be the parched winter and smoky summer of 2026.

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Consider the changing levels of precipitation in Colorado. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has data of annual precipitation in Colorado going back to 1895. So we know that as of 2024, four of the five driest years on record in the state occurred after 2000. But that fact doesn’t convey the experience of climate change like a memory does, such as Michael’s memory of “monsoon rains.” Michael, who grew up on a celery farm in Arvada in the 1960s-80s, remembers a downpour of monsoon rains every summer afternoon, an important source of water for the farm. These days, afternoon storms still occur, but, he says, not as reliably.

Or, consider Karina’s perception of temperature change. She grew up in Louisville in the 2000s. As a kid, Karina and her sister spent winter weekends riding the bus to Eldora to snowboard. As an adult, she senses that the season starts later and ends earlier, giving her fewer opportunities to snowboard.I have heard from individuals who are shocked by windier summers, earlier spring blooms, and the preponderance of wildfires, smoke, and dangerous natural disasters, like the floods of 2013. Although subjective and anecdotal, these feelings capture the tangible outcomes of our shifting climate better than numbers. Stories about climate change can contribute to the quantitative data that academics and researchers collect, and could make the data more comprehensible.

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https://coloradonewsline.com/2026/07/14/climate-change-better-than-numbers/