T he Earth. It's hard not to like it.
Many people adore it.
Indeed, there has long been a strand of environmentalism that treats nature as divine. Few Americans would go so far, of course, but many of them worship in their own way. The media inflamed people's fears of mounting piles of garbage. Politicians seeking to win votes enacted a spate of laws and regulations to encourage and often mandate recycling. But while politics did help create an industry, it did not generate the moral fervor behind it.