The environmental movement has become big business, concludes the Sacramento Bee in a five-part series this week. In 1999, the most recent year for which such figures are available, the heads of nine of the country’s 10 largest environmental groups earned at least $200,000 a year; one of the big wigs earned more than $300,000. (Note: No one at Grist earns more than $300,000.) Money to the movement reached $3.5 billion in 1999, a 94 percent increase from 1992, but much of the dough was spent on overhead and fundraising — not directly on protecting the environment. To further depress you: Some believe enviro groups play with scientific facts to suit their own agendas and the loads of lawsuits filed by enviro groups are no longer producing big gains for the environment.
