One of the reasons I use a lot of words is that I have to work my way through a lot of the wrong terminology before I find what's right. Yesterday's post was kind of like that. What I end up with, so far is this:

An increasing number of people in this country (very prevalently in this country, but probably elsewhere as well) growing up in urban/suburban environments, lack not only a knowledge of but also a respect and a deep-seated awe for nature in all its power, glory and sometimes terrible majesty. Never having experienced a flood or a forest fire or a true survival challenge or a food-chain position other than top, they treat issues of sustainability as on the same level as problems of far lesser scale.

On the upside, people with no real grasp of nature provide quite a large market for Stephen King (whose theory of horror is largely nature-based).

On the downside, a lot of folks seem to have no gut-level appreciation of just how profoundly nature doesn't care whether humans -- much less, Americans -- survive or not.