The Globe and Mail

On a 1-10 scale of environmentalism, I am probably an 8. I'm a strong believer in climate change, believe it is the transcendental issue of our time and believe that the country that solves it will be an economic leader for the next century. In my professional life, I have worked to build renewable power plants and help shape energy and environmental policies that help to tackle climate change and other forms of pollution. On the other hand, my car isn't exactly an electric plug-in and I don't use a green retailer for my electricity. In other words, I am an 8.

I respect and admire many of the things the organised environmental movement pushes for. Moreover, some of my very close friends - some of the smartest, most talented people I know - work or volunteer for enviro groups. None of what I am about to write is targeted at them individually but rather at the enviro movement more broadly.

For 25 years, the environmental movement has been pushing - begging - for an election where the environment was a central ballot question. They would always claim that if a mainstream party put forward a serious plan, the votes would come. They pushed and prodded, cajoled and embarrassed but in the end the environment was always relegated to the margins. A paragraph or two buried in the platforms in between fisheries policies and support for amateur sports. Something that had to be there but made no difference to the election.

That all changed on a cold Saturday in December 2006. Stephane Dion is, as one observer has written, the first green leader of a major, "old school" Western political party. He ran and won in large part on the environment. Once he assumed the leadership, he put forward a policy - the Green Shift - that ensured the environment would, for the first time in Canadian, if not Western political history, be a central issue to an election campaign.

Moreover, the Green Shift is THE policy that enviros have been arguing in favour of for the last two decades. Put a price on pollution and lower other taxes. That's what they wanted.

Stephane didn't adopt the environment as his cause in 2006 and then the Green Shift because some poll told him to or because a focus group convinced him it was the way to become popular. He adopted the environment, for better and for worst, out of a sense of conviction. A sincere belief that saving our planet is the right thing to do and that ultimately good policy makes good politics. You may disagree with both the political wisdom and the policy itself, but it's hard to argue that there was anything cynical in his decision-making process.

So today the enviros have the election they have been waiting for, they have the platform they have been lobbying for and they have a leader who believes in it to his core.

And yet, from the enviros, silence. It hurts ones ears to listen to the silence that has emanated from the environmental groups since the Green Shift was released, never mind during this campaign.

Oh sure, we heard yesterday - for the first time this campaign - from one who told us "it's time for a serious debate." Time for a debate? Well isn't that nice. I love a good debate...where, when, what's the resolution and more importantly what the hell are you thinking?

Without writing a treatise on lobbying, let me put it fairly bluntly: When you spend 25 years lobbying for something, a political party offers it up to you - not in part, in full - and you just don't show up, you are screwed.

If, when you do decide to show up, about three months late to the party, you say it's to start a "debate" and say there are lots of options available - as if there are three equal sides and a healthy exchange of ideas will work it all out - what do you think happens the next time you ask something of a political party?

You are ignored, is the answer. You are irrelevant. You have shown that you are toothless, all bark no bite - insert your hackneyed expression here but they all add up to irrelevance. Or worst, you are the new wedge that your opponents know they can set opposing political parties up on.

Now, if the issue were something insignificant, let's say the future of competitive Scrabble in Canada, we could all say who cares. Let the Scrabble players worry about themselves. Climate change, to be flip, isn't competitive Scrabble. The environmental movement more broadly - from endangered species to the boreal forest - matters.

It's just such a shame that at a time when environmental issues are riding such a high, that the movement supporting those issues is likely relegating itself to another two decades of political irrelevance in Canada.