Hardened (and cynical?) veterans of the environmental policy wars over the past few decades may think "Fat Chance!", but reporter Paul Nussbaum puts the question right in the lead: "Can green be a bridge between red and blue?" Red and blue states and voters, that is, those who voted, respectively, for President Bush or for challenger John Kerry. Nussbaum's "especially at the state and local levels" is an important qualifier on how environment might provide "common ground in an increasingly polarized nation," perhaps leaving the issue at the national level to remain highly partisan and politicized. He quotes League of Conservation Voters President Deb Callahan as harking back to the 70s: "We're building a populist movement," she says. (The League's overwhelming support for Democratic candidates still sticks in the craw of many Republican loyalists, however, a point not mentioned in the Inquirer article.) Nussbaum points to hunters and fishers who support environmentalists in some cases and writes that some evangelicals say they "are more sympathetic to the environmental movement than people think." He quotes Drexel University sociology and environmental professor Robert J. Brulle as saying that some 70 percent of environmental issues "still break down along the old lines, but for 30 or 40 percent of them, the traditional left-right dichotomy doesn't work anymore."