Currently, I’m told, this country is experiencing a folk music revival. I think it’s more accurate to say that we are experiencing a folk resurgance. Folk was never a terminal case. It didn’t need reviving it just went quiet for a while.
Folk simply waited while rock and roll became stadium and progressive, glam became heavy metal, which became thrash, punk exploded then faded and garage, rap and house had their day. Now folk is back again riding on the crest of wave driven by any number of young rising folk stars.
However, many of the artists enjoying the swell of popularity that folk is enjoying are loathe to admit they are ‘folk’ artists. They steer rapidly away from folk due to the traditional connotation. Instead, they prefer to refer to their music with less-tainted (but usually hyphenated) names, such as folk-pop, bluegrass-folk, folk-rock, acoustic folk, contemporary folk, country-folk and folkabilly. Add to that the ‘out there’ artists who deliver psych-folk, metal-folk, goth-folk, thrash-folk and progressive folk and you have a unique amalgum universally called ‘folk’.
There may be a case for a link between 'going green' and the rise of the folk format. Why are there more craft fairs? Why the increase in 'farmers' markets? Why the continued rise of 'living culture and folk' museums - open air or otherwise? Are people trying to reach back into the past or wanting life to be simpler? And if that's the case is folk music going green or riding a wave of 'organic pop'? There could be nothing more to it than people searching for roots and a more wholesome lifestyle, and looking to more 'organic' forms of cultural comunication.
The only poin that the doubters would make is that the majority of the previously mentioned pass times and activities are in the main indulged in by weird-beards, has-been hippies or tree-huggers.
The downside of being called simply 'folk' is that you are typecast as old-fashioned, hopelessly sad, unhip, uncool and so forth. So does this view argue that folk music is not current, not modern and not cool. I hope not. 
