The concept is deeply understood in science and environmental analysis and seems to be widely applicable to human activity in general. 

Imagine if we have a pristine home in which we decided to have a raging party every Saturday for 6 months. Apart from the odd breakage, perhaps a treasured inherited object which caused some emotional hurt at the time of loss, would we be living in the exact same condition house in 6 months? The answer is probably going to be that we have adapted to ever increasing grubbiness.

Robert Kaplan, author, political commentator and strategist, says "Alot of the changes are so gradual that they don't even qualify as news, or even as interesting: they're so mundane that we just take them for granted. But history shows that it's the mundane changes that are more important than the dramatic 'newsworthy' events." 

British writer C S Lewis wrote "The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts".

OK, so we can see this feature of the human condition having some devastatingly negative effects, but could we also use it as a force for good?

Some thoughts on 'shifting baselines for good'

• Education and awareness of this flaw that can ongoing destructive potential - especially with children and policy makers
• Creation of visions and examples of how thing could or should be. 
• Creation of reserves. Marine and terrestrial where particularly children can see and experience nature as close to virgin as possible
• Calling out and legislating against products, practices, advertising that normalise ever decreasing standards
• Taking responsibility ourselves for ALWAYS leaving things a bit better than when we first encountered them
• Improve the culture of our family, team and community, strive for cleaning up toxic thinking and behaviour.