Today, despite pulling out every stop to kill the Quincy Library bill, environmentalists couldn't convince a single member of Congress to vote their way. The answers lie in the recent history of the movement. The environmental movement's strength has always come from its diversity. While a few national organizations get most of the headlines, the real work has always been done by thousands of grassroots environmental groups all across the country. Those groups were always willing to try new tactics to protect the part of the planet they cared about, and successful tactics spread through the movement like wildfire.
Diversity strengthens both ecosystem and movements.
But in the past few years, several events have greatly diminished the environmental movement's diversity. Ironically, the most important such event was the election of Bill Clinton to the presidency. In the previous twelve years, major environmental groups built memberships and raised money by playing on liberal fears of a Republican White House. With an environmentalist Democrat in the White House, that tool vanished and memberships in many groups plummeted. A new kind of environmental group rose to fill the power vacuum.