How green consumerism will survive the recession.

Not long ago, it seemed every entrepreneur was hawking an earth-friendly product, each more indulgently costly than the last: $99 hemp yoga pants; coffee that, we were assured, harmed no birds in its production; and pesticide-free milk from local cows, $5 a quart but, as my breathless companion at the farmer's market demanded, "Can't you just taste the grass?" Even Barney's, a high-end destination for New York City's most avowedly frivolous fashionistas, declared the clothing in its Upper West Side window "insanely sustainable."

Now, with consumer spending down 3 percent from July to September, the worst drop since 1980, it might seem that such environmentally conscious shopping was doomed. After all, aren't we cutting back on unnecessary expenses and looking out for ourselves? Yes, but that's not the whole story. Conspicuous righteousness is on its way out, but hard times may usher in a different kind of consumer revolution, this one greener than the last.

We may, for example, be witnessing the end of the Whole Foods era. A Mecca for the organically inclined but long derided as "Whole Paycheck" for its high prices, this emporium of environmental virtue is in bad shape: From Sept. 28 to Nov. 2, its same-store sales declined 3.3 percent. During those same weeks last year, same-store sales increased 6.7 percent. (Retail health is best measured by comparing sales within the same stores at the same time the previous year, because it is a seasonal industry and expectations for particular stores may vary wildly. It would be silly to compare Christmas with July or a newly opened store with a long-established one.) On a conference call last week to explain the sad fourth-quarter results, CEO John Mackey grimly acknowledged that his customers were "making fewer trips and more value-conscious decisions." Customers elsewhere are also cutting back on organic food, as the New York Times recently reported.

What about the "buy local" movement? The news here is more cheering. Over the past couple of years, foodies, environmentalists, and many other consumers began embracing the idea that food grown close to home not only tastes better-it's fresh and in-season-but is also easier on the planet. Food grown nearby, they reason, has a lesser carbon footprint because it takes far less fuel to drive from Long Island to Brooklyn, for instance, than to fly from Australia to Brooklyn. While this idea has its critics, interest in local food seems to be surviving the recession-partly because it's sometimes a bargain.

Jim Goodman, a dairy farmer in Wisconsin who sells his beef at the weekly farmers' market in Madison, says the market hasn't seen a drop in traffic and his customers have remained loyal, though many now want to buy in bulk. "They want to deep-freeze the whole animal," he says. "They buy a case of tomatoes from the stall next to mine or 15 loaves of bread to put in the freezer. That old mentality of stocking up for hard times is back." Michael Hurwitz, director of Greenmarket NYC, which oversees farmers' markets in New York City, says for the overwhelming majority of farmers there, too, sales remain strong. Part of the reason, Hurwitz explains, is that the farmers' markets are "price-competitive." Farm-stand cheese may be more expensive than most supermarket cheese, but it's cheaper than the same cheese at a fancy specialty store. And in poor urban neighborhoods, where many consumers pay exorbitant prices for alarmingly crappy produce in bodegas and supermarkets, the farmers' market is also an economically smart choice. A study of consumers in the South Bronx, conducted last year by the District Public Health office, found that those who shopped at a farmers' market rated it higher than the neighborhood supermarket not only on quality but on cost.

It turns out there are many ways to view thrifty as the new green. Yard sales are so popular now that many towns are trying to pass ordinances to limit them. Business is booming at second-hand and consignment shops. People are buying old stuff mostly because it's cheaper than new stuff, but the environmental implications are considerable: Such reuse eliminates the most earth-destroying aspects of consumption itself-production and disposal.