"The things that vanished from our childhood"

Collab: Carolina Somoza, B.A. in Political Science (University of Buenos Aires), holds diplomas in Environmental Law, the Rights of Migrants and Refugees, and Comprehensive Environmental Education. Teacher and serves as an advisor at the Office of the Ombudsperson (Autonomous City of Buenos Aires).

I cannot remember the last time I heard cicadas singing: I tried to reconstruct the moment to find an approximate date a place a particular summer morning. I couldn't. All I know is that at some point during my childhood cicadas were almost like an alarm clock. They were just there like crickets or toads after the rain or star-filled skies. They were such an everyday presence that no one stopped to think about them. And perhaps that is precisely why we didn't notice when they began to disappear.

Environmental losses rarely make a sound: No one announces the disappearance of a common butterfly. There are no headlines when a species becomes less frequent in a neighborhood or when a landscape slowly loses part of its diversity. Most changes occur silently almost imperceptibly. First, we stop seeing something. Then we stop missing it. Finally we forget it was ever there. Perhaps that is why it is so difficult to talk about the environmental crisis. We are used to associating it with cinematic imagery: wildfires floods extreme droughts record breaking heatwaves. And it makes sense. These are visible dramatic phenomena that are impossible to ignore. However there is another dimension to the ecological crisis that manifests in a much more subtle way: the progressive disappearance of what we once considered normal. One does not need to be a scientist or an expert to perceive it. It is enough to talk with others and pay attention to the memories that surface time and again. Many of us remember windshields covered in insects after a long road trip. Others speak of summer nights filled with sounds or butterflies fluttering among plants without drawing much attention. These are simple even mundane memories. But that is precisely why they are so significant. They speak of elements that were so integrated into our daily lives that we never imagined they could be missing. Today we know that many of these perceptions are well founded: in recent years numerous scientific studies have warned about the decline of biodiversity in different regions of the world. Although the causes vary by location they usually combine factors such as natural habitat destruction, the intensive use of agrochemicals pollution urban sprawl and climate change. The problem goes far beyond the loss of a particular species. When they disappear, they rarely do so alone. Biodiversity is not just a list of species: it is also an experience. The question takes on another dimension when we look at where we live: Argentina is one of the most urbanized countries in Latin America. More than 90% of its population resides in cities and urban areas. This means that the vast majority of daily experiences with nature occur (or cease to occur) in environments shaped by asphalt artificial lighting traffic and a biodiversity that is much more limited than that of natural environments. For millions of people, daily contact with other species no longer happens in forests woodlands or wetlands. It occurs at best in plazas parks gardens and small green spaces. That is where the environmental memories of a large part of Argentine society are built.

The situation becomes even more significant when we think about childhood. Today the vast majority of children and adolescents grow up in cities. Their first memories of the "natural" world are associated with urban landscapes and a fauna far less diverse than what previous generations knew. Many of the experiences that might have seemed routine to our grandparents or even our parents (and even to some of us) such as seeing fireflies in summer hearing toads after a heavy rain observing large concentrations of insects or enjoying completely starry skies are increasingly rare for those born and raised in major urban centers. And therein lies an unsettling question: What happens when an entire generation never gets to know what was lost?. When a girl has never been woken up by the singing of a cicada, she does not feel that something is missing. When a boy has never sat to take shade at the foot of a tree it is unlikely he will miss it. They simply assume that this is just the way the world is. This naturalization of absence constitutes one of the deepest and least discussed effects of the contemporary environmental crisis. Because it doesn't just modify ecosystems. It also transforms our reference points our expectations and our idea of normality. It is the birdsong at dawn. It is the shade of a mature tree in summer. It is a butterfly landing on a flower. These are small interactions that build our daily relationship with the environment and they often go unnoticed until they cease to exist.

There is another phenomenon that also contributes to these silent absences: light pollution. For thousands of years humanity lived alongside dark skies. Today a large part of the global population lives under constant artificial lighting that hinders stargazing and alters the behavior of numerous species. Insects birds and mammals depend on natural cycles of light and darkness that are modified by the permanent glow of cities. Meanwhile entire generations grow up without ever having contemplated a Milky Way visible to the naked eye. The most unsettling part is our capacity to adapt. There is a concept developed by environmental science known as "shifting baseline syndrome": it describes the tendency of each generation to consider the state of the environment they knew during their childhood as normal. What represented an obvious loss to our grandparents may seem completely natural to us. And what worries us today might not even be perceived by those born a few decades from now. In other words our idea of normality is constantly shifting. Each generation inherits an environment that is slightly more degraded than the one before, yet tends to accept it as the starting baseline. That is why gradual transformations are so difficult to perceive. We are not comparing the present with the distant past: we are comparing it with our own memories which also have limits. In Argentina this phenomenon takes on particular characteristics: The transformation of wetlands the expansion of urban and agricultural frontiers recurring wildfires and ecosystem fragmentation have profoundly altered landscapes that once seemed permanent. In many cases changes occur so slowly that they only become evident when someone reviews old photographs or recalls what a place was like years ago. The wildfires in the Paraná Delta for example did not just affect the air quality for millions of people. They also altered complex ecosystems that host an enormous diversity of species. The same happens with the degradation of native forests or the reduction of natural environments in different regions of the country. Behind every transformation lies a loss that is not always reflected in statistics but is deeply felt in the daily experience of those who inhabit those territories.

Nostalgia in any case can function as a warning sign: it forces us to ask ourselves what things we are stopping to see. What sounds we no longer hear. Which animals became rare when they used to be common. What landscapes we consider normal simply because we never got to know another version of them. The environmental crisis is usually presented as a threat to the future and it undoubtedly is. But it also constitutes a transformation of the present. It is happening right now in the places where we live work and build our memories. Perhaps that is why small absences are so important. Because they remind us that what is at stake are not just technical indicators graphs or climate projections. They are also human experiences. Ways of inhabiting the world. Elements that give texture to our daily lives and that we often value only when they are gone. I still cannot remember the last time I heard cicadas. But every time I think of them I wonder what other things are disappearing right before our eyes without us noticing. What elements of our everyday landscape are becoming rarer. What memories will today's children have when in a few years they try to reconstruct the world of their own childhood. Environmental losses rarely make a sound. Perhaps that is why the first step to confronting them is learning to listen to the silences they leave behind. #ForABetterWorld

Bibliography:

• United Nations Population Division. (2024). Urban population (% of total population), Argentina. Retrieved via TheGlobalEconomy. https://es.theglobaleconomy.com/Argentina/Percent_urban_population/

• Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). (2019). Global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services. IPBES.

• Karr, J. R. (2021). Shifting baseline syndrome. In Encyclopedia of Inland Waters (2nd ed.). Elsevier.

• United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). (2024). Global Environment Outlook. Nairobi: UNEP.

• Sánchez-Bayo, F., & Wyckhuys, K. A. G. (2019). Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers. Biological Conservation, 232, 8-27.

• Secretaría de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sustentable de la Nación. (various years). Estrategia Nacional sobre la Biodiversidad y Plan de Acción. Buenos Aires, Argentina.