Inside the Beltway, the climate movement is comatose. During the Clinton-Gore years, while the us dragged its feet in international climate negotiations, the major national environmental groups allowed themselves to be used by the administration. Seduced by the former vice-president's rhetoric, the groups watched their issue disappear from the political arena when Al Gore sacrificed his convictions to his ambitions and made global warming the subject of a personal vow of silence during his presidential campaign.

The inability of the nation's large, mainstream environmental groups to mobilise the public around the immense threat of climate change