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Then there was also the “one tonne challenge,” another bundle of green froth unloaded by what used to be Environment Canada. It’s best explicated by a report that came out after that Kyoto-induced, Chrétien-government program ran its course in 2005. The first two sentences of its findings are classic: “The good news for Environment Canada is that people seem to remember seeing ads featuring a rant from comedian Rick Mercer about the one-tonne challenge. The bad news is they have no idea what he is talking about.” Noel Coward-grade stuff, this. The coup degrâce came a few sentences later: “(People) had no understanding of why they would want to participate or even what a tonne is.”

Then there was the equally ludicrous One Million Acts of Green. It got a high-profile liftoff from George Stroumboulopoulos (then of CBC’s The Hour) and offered a quick hike to a green heaven by a few acts of petty penance, such as “replacing your light bulbs,” wearing a turtleneck at home, or “starting a composting program at your local school.” These and like follies were intended, of course, to ward off the demiurges of global warming, though the idea of a schoolyard compost heap, scraps of uneaten hamburgers and discarded tofu in slow decay, as a cure for global sea rise and planetary overheating was perhaps a bit overblown.

Where are they now, those green promises of yesteryear? Most, in the merciful closet of willed amnesia, purged in Thomas Browne’s immortal phrase by the “iniquity of oblivion.” This is the way with green promises — they have the life of a summer fly, or (Browne again) are but “a mushroom of a night’s growth” with as little point or purpose.

Some green promises, though, have a longer stay, and of these Ontario’s great green march is king and sovereign of them all. I am beginning to think that the McGuinty-Wynne green dreams was all along a plot by the heathens of Big Oil to destroy the credibility of all planet-saving crusades forever. Or, maybe, it was those busy Russians.