Though the achievements acquired are great, one may wonder whether the environmental movement since the publication of Silence Spring is but a managerial debate which is another sub-chapter of industrialization and capitalism. Of course, many discourses have advocated the intrinsic value of nature, but the influences of these discourses are thin in reality for the major framework under which the world is working has been that of capitalism, and, by definition, intrinsic value cannot be translated into currency, let alone surplus value. Intrinsic doesn’t sell, and the crisis still needed to be dealt with. So, without seeing much possibility in challenging the economic framework in a short time, it was sensible for deep environmentalists to adopt the logic of capitalism and involve themselves in the discussion of cost/efficiency before a fundamental change in natural consciousness was pervasive. In fact, many major figures of the movement have chosen this path, and one of them is the avid nature lover David Bower. However, forty years after the publication of Silent Spring, one does not see a change in natural consciousness closer than before, if not even farther.
The 2004 Nobel Peace Prize probably is a culminating instance for this irony. When Maathai was awarded the Prize in 2004, the environment featured prominently in the presentation speech delivered by Ole Danbolt Mjøs, but it was also clear that Nature was not the major reason for her Peace Prize. No one doubts that the Peace Prize is an anthropocentric one, and, in this case, the peace referred to is not that between Homo Sapiens and the rest of the world, but that within the species. For Maathai, “[t]he environment is very important in the aspects of peace because when we destroy our resources and our resources become scarce, we fight over that.” One dead piece of meat between lions is what nature is in this instance. Resource deserves no peace for no violence can be done to what is already dead, and there is a difference between this group of environmentalists and those who believe in the wilderness itself alone and in the rights of creatures other than man.
The reason for the lack of revolutionary breakthrough of natural conscious might be that, while the strategy slows down the process, it sanctions the mentality of exploitation. The paradox of liberalization of any sort is best manifested in the de-colonization in post-colonial states that universally impose a never-before-seen cultural homogeneity, if not hegemony, within any nation. Often times, when there is no a priori nation or identity already there, human beings fabricate one. Once escaped from the grip of a discourse, the next step seems to be to fall into the sweeter and tighter grip of another. The reasons for this intolerance for obscurity and heteronomy are manifold, but often times the impetus for national identity is likely to be the logic of capitalism and industrialization that was the thrust of colonialism in the beginning. To some extent, Nature has fallen into a similar condition. Purposively or not, the proliferating literature and discussions all serve to do two things, that is, to pinpoint Nature like a butterfly specimen on the wall and propose a way to manage it. The modern environmental movement was initiated in face of the crisis caused by the arrogance of the industrial age, and thus, the movement needed to pinpoint what exactly is in danger before a solution can be formulated. The situation leaves very little room for mysticism or silence on the subject, but this approach is problem oriented and might fall short in addressing the “natural right” of Nature. The problem is that the strategy many environmentalists were forced to adopt and found very useful is, at the same time, a poison and a crystallizer of the industrial logic of Nature as exploited nature and nothing else.
