A materialistic view of nature

“Is it possible that people in our culture have become so estranged from nature their only avenue to it is consumerism?” It is really hard for me to say whether or not I fully agree or disagree with this question. I do believe there are people that sadly enough have become separated from nature, but I also believe that there are plenty of people who resist consumerism and would rather enjoy the real wild nature than be inside the mall in a nature store. I feel that the nature company is a perfect example of a mediated view of nature, it has allowed people to experience nature in their comfort zone, this can be a good and bad thing. This mediated view of nature has given people the option to go to the mall and enjoy nature at the same time, but without the nature store people would have to enjoy the wild nature. But for people who sadly enough do not feel as if they have the time to enjoy wild nature than the nature company is perfect for them. The only problem is, these people who only see nature as materialistic are not really appreciating and seeing the nature world. I feel that it is very upsetting that people love nature but are too afraid to actually experience it first hand. I also think it is crazy that someone would spend $995 on a life-like bronze frog to have in their house, instead of just going outside and observing real frogs. I feel that we can overcome this division by looking deep within ourselves and understand that there is a difference between how we want to connect to nature and how we actually do. So when people walk into these nature stores and want to buy a CD composed of nature sounds, they should think about how they really want to connect to nature and go outside and listen to ‘live’ nature sounds out in the wild instead of pre-recorded ones.