The modern environmental movement owes much of its success to grassroots organizing. The first Earth Day in 1970 was marked by marches, demonstrations and protests manifesting the power of aggressive, 1960s-style activism.

Organizing from the ground up helped build the popular support that environmental causes enjoy today. Opinion polls continue to indicate that the vast majority of people today believe that human actions are damaging the natural environment they live in. Market researchers say that a majority of US citizens consider themselves to be "green."

Success, however, has bred a dangerous complacency, as leading environmental groups have largely abandoned the messy tactics of grassroots activism in favor of "win-win" partnerships with industry, glossy educational campaigns, and professional lobbyists who cruise the corridors of power in the generally vain hope of out-lobbying their corporate counterparts in Washington and state capitols.

Meanwhile, the corporate-led anti-environmental movement has learned from its adversaries and has turned grassroots organizing to its own advantage. Using these tactics, the anti-environmental "Wise Use" movement has succeeded in winning "victories" that damage the environment and foment racism and other social divisions while building the political base for right-wing domination of American institutions.

If environmentalists and other progressive activists want to reverse the tide, they need to remember the lesson that corporations originally learned from them. Instead of compromised, corporate-activist partnerships, they need to connect again with their own social base and learn to speak the language of the people.