In 2002, when Randy Olson wrote an Op-Ed for the L.A. Times one of the ways he described the shifting baselines phenomenon was in terms of weight: If your ideal weight used to be 150 pounds and now it's 160, your baseline -- as well as your waistline -- has shifted. And indeed it has.
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Chuck Hesse wrote to the
If you've ever complained that the kids today just don't understand how things used to be in the good old days, then you've grasped the concept of shifting baselines.
As we pass through Spring on the way to summer, the sea ice in the Arctic is starting to melt. The ice usually peaks by the end of the first week in March or so, then slowly declines for a few weeks, then by about mid-May is heading rapidly towards its likely September minimum.
This posting reminded me of another new normal-- Check out http://www.daveramsey.com/shop/images/products/decal_debt_normal_lg.gif
The point is that normal isn't necessarily a good thing.
(I heard about this slogan from a friend of mine. Admittedly, the website is overly commercial, but I've heard pretty good things about his radio show. Unlike Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh, he's not just agitating people for the sake of publicity and ratings-- He's trying to get them to change their lives for the better.)