Did you see the story in yesterday's New York Times about how green marketing has "lost some of its cachet" and ad execs see declining "levels of concern" about global warming? Reporting on last month's international advertising festival in Cannes, Eric Pfanner writes that environmental marketing was not a hot ticket at this year's festival, in marked contrast to 2007, where Al Gore brought his climate change pitch to the industry and the word was out to "Be seen, be green."

Now I don't know about you, but the first question I asked myself was, why is the Times reporting on an event that took place almost a month ago? The last day of the Cannes festival was June 21 and here it is, July 19. Must've been a slow news day at the Paris bureau...

At any rate, there's no question that a lot of the recent corporate advertising has been over the top. Pfanner cites one marketing campaign in France where a Japanese SUV manufacturer touted its latest gas guzzling product as having been "conceived and developed in the homeland of the Kyoto accords."

Yeah, and the Nazi Party was conceived and developed in the land where Maria and the rest of the Trapp family romped amidst the alpine flowers. Does that mean the Nazis had a song in their hearts and a twinkle in their eyes? Don't think so. Jeeesshh, talk about chutzpah.

Once I got past the issue of news gone stale and the ludicrous idea of what might be thought of as the "Kyoto halo effect," what struck me about the NYT piece is the extent to which the European blogosphere is holding the feet of marketers to the fire when it comes to greenwashing. Apparently, complaints from consumers in Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France about dubious environmental claims have shot up in the past year.

For some reason, what looks to me like commitment, passion, and civic engagement -- evidence that the European public takes the matters of sustainability and climate change very seriously -- is portrayed in Pfanner's article as apathy and a loss of public interest in environmentalism.

Far from any "cooling off," as the headline insists, it looks like bloggers and other watchdogs are turning up the heat. Good for them. I'd be a heckuva lot more worried if they weren't doing so. Unless corporations understand that they're citizens, too, and are accountable for their actions, sustainability doesn't stand a snowball's chance in global warming hell. Social media, although overhyped in some quarters, offer one of the most effective ways to keep corporations on their toes.

Bottom line:  the notion of "green fatigue" promoted so assiduously by the Times just doesn't wash.  At least based on the evidence presented in this article. If you haven't already, take a look and see what you think.