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LANDSCAPE AMNESIA:
Pun Intended
May 14, 2025
‘Landscape Amnesia’
(also known as ‘creeping normality’ or ‘gradualism’) refers to the process in which major change is accepted as normal if that change (transformation) takes place over time in small increments, even though that major change would result in massive objection if it happened suddenly or within a short time period.
‘Landscape’
in ‘landscape amnesia’ may—but doesn’t necessarily—refer to geographical terrain. Landscape can also mean the societal, or emotional, or political, or structural, or attitudinal surroundings of a past event or relationship or some past detail.
‘Amnesia’
refers to a deficit or lapse in memory. In fact, it’s more than just a tendency to forget. Amnesia means being unable to remember significant events or details from the past.
In our case, the expression ‘landscape amnesia’ carries both meanings:
  1. the inability of a person being able to remember (or who willfully ignores) how much different life was before the climate change phenomenon took hold (when, for example, people still freely enjoyed the sunshine without worrying about the commonality of skin cancer); and
  2. the physical change in the physical landscape of the Earth (including the seas becoming a garbage patch for plastic waste, or the air carrying higher-and-higher levels of harmful carbon, or the land and forests being razed for industrial developments)
Nowadays, it doesn’t even take generations to observe the change in the landscape around our homes and neighborhoods—we can see it in our everyday life, as transformations (due to climate change) take place. Seeing a growing number of small changes due to human exploitation of the various ecosystems of the Earth has become normal. It’s part of life … we might think. But, do we consider the long-term consequences, or do we only live in the current every days? Because … resources provided by ecosystems are not limitless.
Do we consider how the landscape will look, or how well the land will provide for the sustenance of our children or grandchildren when they grow up? Or, do we worry only about their education or financial well‑being in order to prepare them for creating a good life as adults? But, will they be able to … on an exploited land?
The environmental changes, in our days today, are already perceptible. They happen little‑by‑little, in increments. But, they keep happening. And, the growth of such happenings is increasing.
So, the questions are:
  1. Do we allow amnesia to take hold in our minds and in our landscape? Do we allow human exploitation of the Earth’s resources, and climate change to continue to increase … thinking that no big bang will happen in our lifetime?

    But, the small increments of change adding up might just create an intolerable state of living conditions in our children’s or grandchildren’s lifetime, and so on.
  2. Does that matter to us?
Ultimately, we the people on this Earth, at this time when the alarming changes are already perceptible, are the ones who can take action to reverse it—through both:
  1. Action in our own individual everyday lives, and
  2. Action to ensure that large corporations do their part
Because, otherwise, in our children’s or grandchildren’s adulthood, a reversal might no longer be possible.
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ADDITIONAL READING (book):
Author: Jared Diamond
Title: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive
Publisher: Penguin


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