So it's all over, then. The defining - indeed, to be fair, pretty much the sole - political movement of my generation has come under sudden, severe attack and appears to be about to cark it before June is out. Last week Newsnight led with the story “Is Green Dead?” and could only conclude that yes, actually, it probably was. When a mere 300 fuel protesters unleashed their weapon of war (driving very slowly down the M4 for six hours - scarcely an outlandish sight in modern Britain, but then, this is what happens when a showbiz “spectacle” is planned wholly and exclusively by heterosexual men who drive trucks), Gordon Brown will have “no choice” but to accede to their demands and scrap the “green tax” on lorries. Green policies are rapidly being shelved or abandoned by the Government, because Brown is “in a crisis of power”.

Of course, calmer heads would point out that, as crises of power go, one where you are still PRIME MINISTER, in charge of A COUNTRY, isn't so bad. It's certainly no “having a colicky newborn child finally fall asleep on you, just as you realise you need the toilet”. Any mother would suggest that someone who is both having their dry-cleaning delivered by a factotum and has access to the nuclear button is probably still, on balance, top dog.

But still. Gordon Brown or no Gordon Brown, there's certainly a sense that green stuff feels a bit yesterday, what with all these other big box-office emergencies. Typhoons in Burma. Earthquakes in China. Global recession in, erm, the globe. When Angelina Jolie goes offline at the end of the month, to have those twins, the only person left in the world who cares about the environment will be Al Gore, and the viewers of Blue Peter. Indeed, we've already forgotten about green issues here. In the UK, our carbon emissions actually rose last year. The year we hosted Live Earth. Amazing.

Part of the problem is that we never really worked out how properly to refer to the subject. “Green” or “green issues” seemed to be the default term - but there are terrible problems with using the term “green” if you are trying to spur a nation into alarm and action. Psychologically, green is an inherently soothing colour. As soon as someone says “green issues”, I stop listening to what they're saying and think of a lovely horse chestnut tree, waving in the breeze in early May, instead. In my relaxed state, it's very difficult to then propel me into action on reducing paraben use by 2020. I'm chillaxing in my “safe place”. “Green issues” would be much more effective if they were called “cracked, parched earth and antelope skulls issues”; or “clinging to the steeple of a church as a filthy, radioactive tidal wave takes out Colchester issues”. The other option - “the environment” - is, if anything, marginally worse. Anyone with a modicum of self-awareness would have to say it with a slightly apologetic semi-belm - as if they were Benny from Crossroads, repeating a “posh”, puzzling word just used by Miss Diane: “The enviboment.” Additionally, “the environment” sounds so far away. I mean, I'm a well-read concerned greenie liberal, but even I would estimate “the environment” to be about 6,000 miles away; in Africa, or Russia, maybe. I certainly don't think we've got any environment in Crouch End. Apart from Stationer's Park - but it seems to be a lovely, pre-Industrial Revolution enviboment down there.

The big problem with “environmental issues” is that it's a bit as if I were a woman living in northern Pakistan, in full burka, trying to drop a dress size in time for a public hanging I was very excited about. Every day I would try to eat sensibly, exercise, stay motivated, try not to get stoned to death for looking out of a window in a “bad” way, etc. But when I looked in the mirror and saw that, after all those ab-crunches, I still looked like an oppressed shuttlecock, it would be easy to become demotivated. Chances are, I'd end up stuffing myself with Turkish Delight before the end of the week because I couldn't see the results of my efforts.

And the Earth's future, you see, rests on a similar problem - in that I, for one, have no handle on my environmental weight-gain. I environmentally ab-crunch my way through a punishing regime of eco-friendly washing powder, public transport and trying to remember if it's possible to recycle milk cartons - but the world looks exactly the same whether I bother or not. And if I take a week off, I have absolutely no idea how many emaciated lemurs finally fall under the wheels of a logger's lorry in Peru as I lie on the sofa, sippin' a Bud.

What I really need is some manner of green-o-meter. If I had a Facebook application that monitored my efforts and converted them into something palpable, I'd probably become the most envibomental [sic] person in the world. If I recycle a month's worth of New Scientists, I want a picture of the endangered moth I just saved to appear on my FunWall. Every year I don't buy a new car, I'd like a picture of a field in Norfolk being saved from the waves, please. And so on upwards - so that if I ever get round to staging Live Earth 2, 12,000 newly reassured tigers would suddenly appear on my profile - making me a new kind of Miss World. The best kind of Miss World, eh, kids?

Really, there's no two ways about it, whatever the truckers, or Gordon, think. The enviboment is quite important. It is, after all, where we keep all our stuff. We just need some way for it to show us how important we are. Some way that makes us look incredibly razzy and wins the admiration of our peers.

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