It has been 23 months since the NSW Labour government left office after more than 16 years in power.

Normally when a left leaning administration is replaced by a right leaning one the inevitable shift in attitude to nature and natural resources would galvanize the environmental movement.

When hard won conservation legislation, planning rules and funding for environmental management are chipped away there might be an objection, some resistance, or at least some verbal argument. Only there has been very little noise.

No great shouts against the inching away from protection — not even allowing shooting in national parks seemed to get a reaction.

Only the nationally significant issue of coal seam gas, particularly how it will be extracted and the possible impact on farmers, seems to have stirred the pot.

Regular readers will know that alloporus is not overtly green — a regular guy who owns a car, takes plane rides, watches a plasma TV and wrote a book called “Awkward news for Greenies” has little moral ground to claim great environmental advocacy. Yet this quiet is eerie — makes you wonder.

Is it the calm before the storm, the tirade that must hit when the environment is no longer considered?

Or is it something else? Perhaps there is no energy left. It could be that the era of loud advocacy has passed. Maybe the malaise of personal entitlement has swept across us all, even the card-carrying activists.

If it has then we have a problem. Whilst screaming from greenies is about as welcome as a crying baby in the quiet carriage of the commuter train, it performs a vital function.

It keeps the b—-ds honest

And when all that goes quiet it is dangerous for us all.