Boiling frogs

Thursday 23 April 2026, Millennium Gallery, Sheffield

Participants at a 2024 philosophical enquiry in the Ruskin Gallery – facilitated by Rosie Carnall.

An enquiry about noticing nature Over the last few years, my community philosopher friends at Think Together Sheffield have produced a wonderful event with Sheffield Museums as part of their ‘Lates’ series – a programme of after-hours events for adults that features talks, discussion, activities, and a bar. Philosophy Late offers a host of different ways to look at art, from interactive, conversation-sparking drop-in activities to a playful ‘reverse Q&A’ hosted by Philosophy students from Philosophy in the City, as well as a series of longer facilitated enquiries located across Millennium Gallery's various exhibition spaces.

The theme this year is: How we look, inspired by Sheffield Museums’ exhibition of the Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize, where the 54 selected portraits embody the diversity and depth of the ways in which subject, artist, judge, medium, technology, politics, economics, and curatorial context shape the was a portrait is seen.

Working within this gallery and others, my colleagues offer enquiries on the power and vested interests of portraiture, the transformational nature of art, the idea of artistic genius, the beauty of nature, individual freedom and public safety, social perception and identity, and art as self-betterment to the several hundred people who attend the night. This year, my offering is somewhat bleaker – a fact reflected in the modest numbers it attracts.

I am located in the Ruskin Gallery, a permanent space celebrating the life and work of the Victorian polymath John Ruskin, whose philosophical and philanthropic work was driven by a love of nature and its beauty, alongside a recognition of the stark inequalities of industrial England. In 1875, he founded a museum specifically for Sheffield’s workers, filled with a collection of beautiful artworks, illustrated books, and minerals. Once exhibited in the suburb of Walkley, not far from where I live, the collection now has a home in Millennium Gallery and offers a glimpse of Ruskin’s vision of social and environmental betterment.

A philosophical enquiry in the Ruskin Gallery from a 2024 Think Together Sheffield Event 'When Thought Takes Flight' – facilitated by Rosie Carnall.

The Ruskin Gallery is currently home to a temporary exhibition Storm-Cloud: The Look of the Sky, inspired by Ruskin’s 1884 lecture on industrial pollution and changing weather. He argued that a ‘plague wind’ was making the weather weak and unpredictable, and that the filth and smoke from industry were part of the cause. The exhibition takes this lecture as a starting point to present artistic and scientific observations of our sky and climate. This is the stimulus for my enquiry.

I am joined by six people of different ages and experiences: a retired architect who has lived his whole life in Sheffield; a second-year geography student from Hertfordshire; an American applied theatre facilitator who made Sheffield her home many years ago; and a Chinese Masters graduate, looking for work in the city’s cultural sector.

‘Speaking in 1884, Ruskin noticed changing cloud patterns and warned of both industrial and spiritual degradation,’ I begin. ‘In 2026, the planet is changing rapidly because of our ongoing destruction of nature. This workshop explores what we notice about this change, why we notice it, and why noticing matters.’

We start by acknowledging the title of the session, and I ask: ‘When it comes to noticing climate change, how apt is the metaphor of boiling frogs?’ Celia speaks first with a welcome challenge: ‘In some ways it works. But there is a disanalogy. Unlike the frog, we can’t exactly jump out of the pan, can we?’

I tell the group that I want us to focus on this idea of noticing starting with what we noticed as children. I ask them to wander around the gallery and find an exhibit that sparks a vivid childhood memory of being ‘in nature’. They are to return to the circle and share that memory – or, if no memory comes, to reflect on that instead.

The smaller group allows for richer storytelling. Prompted by Ruskin’s collection of paintings of British coastlines, among them the white cliffs of Dover, Maron speaks of being back home in Nigeria, playing in the sea along the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. Valerie too recalls the sea, speaking of the Jersey Shore north of Philadelphia where she grew up. Images of plants and trees remind Ruby of summers spent in the garden of her grandparents’ holiday home in France, while Ruskin’s charcoal cityscapes invite Paul’s recollection of the red-brick terraces of Sheffield, a single lilac tree in the yard, and a caterpillar kept in a matchbox.

I invite the group to reflect on what they noticed about their memories – how our different geographies, generations, and opportunities might shape what and why we recall these moments.

We move on to consider a more scientific iteration of the boiling frog metaphor: shifting baseline syndrome, an idea I came across in Robert Macfarlane’s book, about which I wrote in another blog: Is a River Alive?  Scientists Masashi Soga and Kevin Gaston describe this phenomenon as follows:

‘With ongoing environmental degradation at local, regional, and global scales, people's accepted thresholds for environmental conditions are continually being lowered... This psychological and sociological phenomenon is termed shifting baseline syndrome (SBS).’

I invite the group to explore what SBS might mean and to discover (albeit not very scientifically) whether it holds for our small, multi-generational group. I encourage them to return to their childhood memories and ask themselves: compared to when you were a child, do you notice fewer insects? Spring coming earlier? A quieter dawn chorus?

I underline this activity – where we move to different sides of the room – with a more pointed question: do you notice the destruction of nature happening?

Our results are mixed, with older and younger participants alike swinging between noticing and not noticing insects, birds, and signs of spring. This is interesting too. We know what the data says in each of these cases, yet sometimes we notice nature and sometimes we don’t. Why might this be? On one hand, we consider our busyness or our city living. But we also acknowledge the existing concern for the environment that brings us to this sobering workshop in the first place. We are, perhaps, already a group of noticers – primed to notice, wanting to.

Celia speaks about what she reads every day about the destruction of nature. She had read with hopefulness, for example, reports about the resurgence of otter populations in the UK, only to read with despair that the same waterways are being polluted again with sewage.

‘Is that also a kind of noticing?’ I ask. ‘And is there anything more virtuous in counting otter populations with your own eyes?’

Valerie speaks of reading about the rapid melting of ice caps and glaciers. She admits this really struck her when she saw a news piece showing a couple photographed at the same spot 15 years apart, revealing the extent of melting in Swiss glaciers. In a world where there is so much reliable data on climate change, why does it sometimes take something small – like a pair of holiday snapshots – before we truly notice?

Unlike the others, Ruby says she grew up learning about the climate crisis at school. It was concern for the environment that led her to Sheffield and to a geography degree. Young people are drowning in data about environmental degradation; there is so much bad news that she sometimes fears she has become numb to it.

Acknowledging the toll this takes on young people in particular, Valerie suggests that there is little value in noticing if we don’t act – or if we can’t act.

Then Maron argues that noticing is the foundation upon which action is built.

This line of enquiry allows us to move onto more ethical ground. So I ask: ‘Are you responsible for noticing – or not noticing – the destruction of nature? Should we be praised if we notice, or blamed if we don’t? Does noticing nature matter, or only if it leads to action?’

Paul says, with regret, that in his childhood he never thought about the destruction of nature – but perhaps he ought to have.

I share with Paul the difference it made to my life when, in my late twenties, I had my own garden for the first time. Suddenly, on council roundabouts and local parks, I noticed hellebores growing in March and catkins dropping in May – things that had been invisible to me before. ‘Does it take a garden to notice nature?’ I ask. ‘And is that something everyone can have?’

‘Can we blame little Paul – whose outdoor space was a yard and a lilac tree – for failing to notice the destruction of nature?’ I wonder aloud.

The discussion takes on renewed energy as these themes of environmental and social justice begin to connect. Celia wonders whether noticing and worrying about environmental destruction is less a generational issue and more about one’s stage in life. As a younger person, she was focused on other concerns, but now, somewhere in midlife, this feels all-consuming. ‘Are we to blame people who are not there yet?’

Ruby admits that, as a child, she felt angry with those who didn’t notice – ‘or didn’t care’ – about environmental destruction. Now, she feels it is too simple to condemn people when factors beyond their control may be at play. But she feels differently about the rich and powerful, who should know better, should notice, and should act. She also wonder if that noticing, and worrying about the world, can be a kind of virtue signal.

I ask whether there is a flip side to being a ‘noticer’: can you be the first to notice when things improve? I mention that I’ve noticed – through reading, as Celia does – that beavers have recently been released into several sites across England as part of efforts to restore the species. In the past, I might missed a good news story like this. Is there value in this kind of noticing? Yes, suggest some of the group. Maybe.

I ask the group, composed of different ethnicities and nationalities, why they think the climate movement is so often criticised for being too white and well-off. The group reflects that we are not all looking from the same place.

Valerie recalls being part of a climate protest where she was blocking a road. A driver wound down his window and shouted at her: ‘You might not have a job to go to today, but I do – and first I have to drop off my kids at school!’ His understandable anger stayed with her, reminding her that we all carry different worries and pressures; we are not equally attuned to the same threats.

Think Together Sheffield facilitator Helen Griffin, at a previous Philosophy Late event 'Thinking in Colour' in 2025.

The session is coming to an end, and so I return to something Ruby said about noticing and caring. ‘Are these ideas related?’ I ask. The group agrees that caring for nature is ultimately what we need – it may be the bridge between noticing and acting.

‘How, then, do we get people to care?’ I ask. The group returns to both childhood and more recent experiences of finding joy in nature – from listening to shells and picking up bugs, to swimming in the sea and ‘forest bathing.’

Robert Macfarlane asks: what would it mean for young people to experience ‘rising baseline syndrome’ where each generation encounters improvements in the natural world? The group is not convinced this is possible, but if the path toward Ruskin’s vision of social and environmental betterment is possible, it may be paved with these small moments of noticing and caring, as well as acting.

With thanks to Socratic Dialogue UK (SDUK) for funding this event.

And thanks to Rosie Carnall and Kate Halliwell for organising it. Read their bios here: https://www.thinktogethersheffield.org/)