The awareness/terror levels are climbing. Despite (because of?) the best efforts of “the system” to get us to ignore reality, reality nonetheless impinges. People, despite the best efforts of our education system and media, are not stupid. Or rather, most people are only stupid intermittently. And when people are worried/unsure, they seek advice.
If they don’t think their friends and family will have good advice, they either hire a shrink or … write to an advice columnist. And here below are two examples – one from September 1988 with the famed Ann Landers, and one from (checks notes) today, about the climate crisis. And I am sure if I looked hard enough I’d find something about the “ecological crisis” from the late 1960s/early 1970s.
and here
What do we learn? We really are in the shit. The shit is of our own making. Freud would have a field day.