Which leads to questioning capitalism's role in the environment, world politics, etc. To correct that inequity, they argue for the creation of new government programs. They therefore feel good about themselves, make more money, and therefore intellectuals have a vested interest in government. Today the intellectual classes are more or less in the Democratic party. Today the Democratic party is the party of large government.
Environmental values are a complex mix of many issues.
The bias of viewing solutions in political terms reflects the interests of the intellectuals, and the challenge is for the environmental good to triumph over the intellectual class's interest. As earlier noted, Americans generally share goals. The debate is whether private or public means is the most effective way to advance those goals. There, many individuals before the modern environmental movement in the 70s, improved their lands to be more favorable as wildlife habitats. They did so because they cared about nature.