"At a fall retreat, board members of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the environmental advocacy group, listened as a political consultant gave a critique of the green movement."
"Think of the public as a consumer in a grocery aisle passing a box of brownie mix, the consultant said. The brownie on the front is so delectable that she can imagine the taste and the smell. So delicious, in fact, that she pays no attention to the back of the box listing the ruinous fat and calorie content.
Environmentalists, the consultant said, were always yammering to consumers about the back of the box. And, guess what? Nobody wants to listen.
If there was a tougher moment over the last 40 years to be a leader in the American environmental movement, it would be hard to put your finger on it. The earth is warming, perhaps catastrophically, yet legislative efforts to cap carbon emissions collapsed in 2010. Global carbon limits have been equally elusive, as a conference in Durban, South Africa, showed again last week.
Here at home, add to the list hostile Congressional Republicans and some high-profile failures of green subsidies, all at a time when a North American fossil-fuel energy boom beckons, undermining the national will to curb emissions."
Leslie Kaufman reports for the Washington Post December 17, 2011.
Advertisement 
