Research published on Monday suggests that British people are becoming increasingly detached from wildlife, the countryside and nature. Seven out of 10 people in the Jordans Cereals survey admitted they felt they were losing touch with the natural world, while a third said they did not know enough about the subject to teach their own children. One in three people could not identify an oak tree.

This detachment has negative consequences for conservation. People simply can’t and won’t rally round to save something they are not really aware of. A major report last year already warned that Britain is among “the most nature-depleted countries in the world”.

Does this matter? I think it does. Surely this is urban alienation at its most literal. Humans have intervened so decisively in the processes that create life on Earth that we are increasingly aware only of our own interventions, and not of the vast ecosystems that make them possible. Nature reminds us that we are a small part of something vast, complex, ever-evolving and infinitely precious. It reminds us that, as part of this system, we are precious, too.

Yet all around us is self-destruction. Senior doctors and health charities warn that heavy drinking will kill 65,000 people over the next five years, at a cost to the NHS of £16.74bn. They are asking urgently for a crackdown on cheap alcohol and further restrictions on the advertising of booze, to at least help to avert the problem.

The problem, however, seems existential to me. Many people are trying to escape from themselves and their lives. To an extent, the measures work, simply making it harder for people to purchase their poison. But it’s a strategy that makes a difference only after so many other aspects of a life have already gone wrong.

In other news, it was announced that “self-exclusions” from gambling websites have reached 1 million. This is a process whereby people with problematic gambling habits apply themselves to be banned from the sites that feed their addiction most. It seems incredible really, that so many people are powerless in the face of their addiction, yet have to find the impetus themselves to engage with the bureaucracy that places temptation out of reach.

These human problems are not going to be solved by a chart that identifies the top 10 British garden birds. But it’s hard to resist the idea that people are losing their place in the world, in a profound sense. Alienation from nature makes it more easy for nature to be destroyed, on the planet or in a single human body. Conservationists are right to be worried, about loss of habitat, and about our vast loss of knowledge and respect for the system that sustains us.