Gunning for The Greens

The sour economy has made it more fashionable to save jobs than trees -- and fueled a backlash led by loggers, ranchers and developers

Who cares about a few spotted owls when loggers' jobs are at stake? Why worry about caribou when America needs more of Alaska's oil? Who can afford to think about the environment when the economy is the pits?

When times get tough, the questions facing environmentalists get even tougher. And these days, economic anxieties and shifting political winds are threatening to produce a green-out effect that could make tree huggers feel as endangered as the California condor. Epochal events such as the gulf war and the collapse of the Soviet Union have pushed most domestic ecological concerns off the front pages....

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