naturophobie

CONT: [Les études des] effets des facteurs environnementaux sur la santé [constituent un] sujet [...] sensible [qui] sort du champ purement scientifique : il comporte des enjeux en termes d'écologie, de politique de santé et de politique, générale; une divulgation trop rapide de données scientifiques risque d'augmenter l'angoisse environnementale [...]
OBS: écophobie : Le mot «phobie» englobe la crainte maladive, la répugnance, la peur, le dégoût, l'horreur (p. ex. : «zoophobie», peur morbide de certains animaux). Il faut que le premier élément du terme représente l'objet de cette crainte ou de cette répugnance. «Éco» est ambigu : il peut vouloir dire «écologie» (habitat, environnement) ou «économie». Par exemple, nous avons relevé le terme «écophobie» dans le sens de la haine de l'écologie ou des préoccupations environnementales (aussi «écolophobie»), de la peur d'être chez soi (aussi «domophobie»), de l'aversion pour les questions touchant l'économie (aussi «éconophobie»), mais non dans le sens de la peur des milieux naturels qui fait l'objet de la présente fiche. Les termes anglais «ecophobia» et français «écophobie» semblent être souvent de faux-amis.

CONT: Ecophobia -- a fear of ecological problems and the natural world -- is a fear of oil spills, rainforest destruction, whale hunting, acid rain, the ozone hole, and Lyme disease [and sometimes the fear of just being outside].
CONT: This summer's record-busting hot spell ... has aroused an extraordinary response. ... Many Americans have found themselves concerned ... about the whole bruised and abused human habitat. Soggy, unremitting heat sometimes seemed a symptom of general ecological collapse. ... Ecophobia, as the mood might be called, has not been induced by the hot spell alone .... The combination of heat and pollution gave a ""sense of foreboding"" ... [and provoked] apprehensions about ecological dangers .... Ecophobia ... is not likely to disappear ... [because] there is sufficient cause for fear about almost every aspect of the human environment.
OBS: Briefly, ""ecophobia"" is an irrational (often hysterical) and groundless hatred of the natural world, or aspects of it. Such fear of the agency of Nature plays out in many spheres. The personal hygiene industry relies on it, since capital-driven notions about personal cleanliness assign us preference for perfumes (for some more than others) over natural bodily odors; the cosmetic industry (in its passion for covering up Nature's ""flaws"" and ""blemishes"") uses it; beauticians and barbers (in their military passion for cutting back natural growths) are sustained by it; city sanitation boards display it in their demands that residents keep grass short to prevent the introduction of ""vermin"" and ""pests"" into urban areas; landscaped gardens, trimmed poodles in women's handbags on the Seoul subway system -- anything that amputates or seeks to amputate the agency of Nature and to assert a human order on a system that follows different orders is, in essence, ecophobic. Ecophobia is a subtle thing that takes many forms.