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31 they were put into practice" (Hughes 2009: 79). And this includes Asia, despite the greater environmental awareness that their belief systems seem to embody. Yet this surely means that below the latter operates a parallel set of beliefs that more or less explicitly fosters or at least allows the human appropriation of nature. It would be naïve to regard as idiosincratically human those values that prevent the exploitation of nature, whereas those that do the opposite are deemed less than human. Both are human, testifying to the essential ambivalence that features the human relationship with nature—one that includes material and spiritual dimen- sions, as well as instrumental and non-instrumental uses. At the same time, the emerging global industrial culture, with its emphasis in individual self-fulfillment, social wealth production and consumerism, might seem to involve a great loss of cultural diversity. As Baird Callicott suggests, it is a self-reinforcing process: Cultural diversity is a reflection of biological diversity and depends on it. The homogenei- zation of the landscape leads to the homogeneization of culture, and vice versa (Callicott 1994: 12). But is that true? Does Modernity involve the disappearance of conservationism or alternative worldviews? Not quite. They just survive under new forms—envi- ronmental public policies and movements, as well as alternative and counter- hegemonic cultural codes and practices, together with the mainstreaming of a number of green beliefs and values. It might even be said that the situation has been reversed: whereas in the past formal beliefs tended to forbid nature's exploi- tation, but the latter continued to take place, the current hegemonic culture of late modernity legitimizes the human uses (and experiments with) nature, but claims and practices that defend the opposite are alive and well. What this apparent para- dox suggests is that the human species, rather than different human cultures, may be transhistorically seen as the main unit of adaptation—aggressive adaptation—to the environment. In turn, this opens up the possibility of a nuanced universalism within which room enough is left for a number of particularisms. References Bacon, F. (2009). Novum organum. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Baertschi, B. (2012). The moral status of artificial life. Environmental Values, 21, 5–18. Birnbacher, D. (2006). Natürlichkeit. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Bowler, P. (2009). Evolution. The history of an idea. Berkeley: University of California Press. Callicott, J. B. (1994). Earth's insights. A survey of ecological ethics from the Mediterranean Basin to the Australian Outback. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Capra, F. (1997). The web of life. A new synthesis of mind and matter. London: Flamingo. Cassirer, E. (2009). The philosophy of the enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Clark, M. (1989). Ariadne´s thread. The search for new modes of thinking. New York: St. Martin's Press. Darwin, C. (2008). On the origin of species. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Descartes, R. (2005). Discourse on method and the meditations. London: Penguin. Diderot, D. (2000). Thoughts on the interpretation of nature and other philosophical works. Manchester: Clinamen Press. 2.5 Other Views of Nature?