You have persuaded me to replace the term "environment" with "conditions and circumstances."

Well, there's something to celebrate, because I think we can agree on that. No, I don't know exactly why the Netherlands chose to go in a completely different direction than the US did - only that they did choose that. And I'm not expecting you to know the answer either. I imagine it was not just one thing, but a series of influences and choices. Population numbers and homogeneity may well have been some of them. This story was simply an illustration of how the word "environment" which I took to mean physical environment, such as the author mentioned about amounts of rain, etc., effecting how culture developed, to not be a sufficient explanation of how different choices are made in different societies on anything but the most macro level. Certainly physical conditions can have an impact, but so do other circumstances and choices including things that may have been decided on as a way to differentiate from neighboring groups (schismogenesis) or other types of cultural influences.

For example, early egalitarian cultures typically had a life-giving goddess as the primary deity who was balanced by a male consort. Seeking her assistance with bringing forth abundance - in crops, in children, etc, was a core value, as was balance between men and women. When many of these cultures were over-run or simply assimilated by Northern tribes that worshipped a male god of thunder and war, one who ruled without a female consort, and who brought terror and death to his enemies, it influenced the values of the culture. We can see distinct changes in things like art and pottery, that go from depicting beauty and abundance to ones that depict things like a king with his foot on the neck of a chained slave. How these tribes came to worship a god such as that is a trickier topic, but can certainly see how different "spiritual" values influenced other aspects of the two cultures.