These are the best of times and the worst of times to be an environmentalist. In political terms, after waiting for decades outside in the cold, it seems the environmental movement has suddenly been invited in to join the party, and is now being feted by one and all. Mainstream politics now largely "gets" environmentalism - or at least its aims.
But as these aims, albeit slowly, become assimilated into the manifestos and pledges of our politicians, so too a backlash seems to be gathering pace among the wider public. Just witness the recent media-driven outcry about the phasing out of incandescent light bulbs. Or the increased questioning over the environmental merits of recycling. These now join other proposals put forward by environmentalists - such as windfarms, personal carbon quotas and green taxes - in the stocks as a baying and growing crowd, largely consisting of people resistant to the prospect of ever having to alter their lifestyle, gathers to hurl invective.
Very few people now disagree with environmentalism's central premise that sawing away merrily at the branch upon which we all sit isn't the wisest thing to be doing. Most people accept that we live in a world of finite resources and need to work hard not to despoil and exhaust the resources we have yet to plunder. That particular debate is won and now surely over.
As ever, the debate and criticism starts when the alternatives to the status quo are presented. For the long period in which environmentalists were largely debating among themselves about the value and viability of each solution, it didn't make much difference to wider society that doctrine and ideology often muddied and calcified such debates, because no one was listening. But now that these debates take place daily around the world, the principled stubbornness and over-my-dead-body positioning that used to characterise such discussions, understandably and rightly, is not being tolerated. Environmentalism is being forced to grow up: move beyond the moody idealism of its teenage years and towards the murky compromise and pragmatism that are the hallmarks of so-called mature politics.
This is not a comfortable transition for those who refuse to water down or reappraise their long-held beliefs. This can be an admirable trait - some argue compellingly, as in the case of the Heathrow expansion and Kingsnorth coal-fired power station debates, that you can't compromise when all our futures could be at stake; but to persist with a sometimes belligerent and arrogant attitude also risks alienating the movement from its newfound audience.
Whether environmentalists like it or not, they are being asked to accept some things many of them find particularly unpalatable, such as the barrage scheme Paul Kingsnorth decried on these pages this week. In particular, I'm thinking about issues such as nuclear power and genetically modified crops. But maintaining an open mind is surely part of the answer if winning over a sceptical public is the goal. Dogma is an unattractive trait whatever your political colours.
In addition, environmentalists are having to explain and explain again, with evident frustration, why the rest of the world should go along with their big ideas. You can almost hear them thinking aloud: "Why don't they all get it yet? Don't they realise the quagmire we're all in?" Life as an environmentalist can lurch from extreme pessimism (the publication of yet another gloomy study) to exultant optimism (finally, a White House resident who seems to get it) within moments. But perhaps the greatest frustration is that, despite the overwhelming evidence of the clear and present danger before us all, there is still a widespread intransigence about acting in any meaningful way.
The environmental movement needs to take stock of the huge advances it has made over the past decade or so in flagging up the problems, but now needs to reassess its presentation and listen to advice and criticism. It is welcome news that a conference at the University of the West of England next month will debate the "psychological challenge of facing climate change". It might throw some light on why so many people still refuse to act on the evidence and wish instead to shoot the messenger.
But persisting with a bunker mentality will only continue to exacerbate the sense of "them and us". Worse, perhaps, it will only ever be grist to those who are ideologically, even pathologically, opposed to the environmental movement. There is little point expending energy mimicking them. Like the coppiced willow that returns harder and faster the following year, the environmental movement can only ever be strengthened by taking the hits, accepting the criticism it receives, and then, most importantly, learning from it.