This article examines the politics of representation in the context of ecocriticism. It addresses the question concerning the modes of critique and action that are adequate to describe and respond to the farcical cultural moment when environmental knowledge circulates so readily but is dissociated from any particular political project of social change. It suggests that Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring outlines the representational challenge that ecocriticism faces, which is the politicization of environment. This article also explains that environmentalism articulates problems at the level of the social and in doing so expand the horizons of political possibility.