Well, none of us made money from William Hill, who offered bets of 1,000/1 that Chancellor Darling would dye his eyebrows green to chime with The Greenest Budget Ever.
And no painter worth his salt would have given tuppence for the washed out shades Mr Darling offered in the name of stability, stability, stability, even if he did use the words climate change and environment 15 times.
There was nothing last Wednesday to make pseudo-green biofuel genuinely green and therefore no measures to halt the habitat destruction underway across the world in the name of saving the planet.
And those hoping the red box would contain the promise that the extra landfill tax millions, set to swell Treasury coffers, would mean substantially more money for work to meet the government’s own wildlife action plan targets, were left feeling fairly blue. An extra £5 million will be available via the Landfill Communities Fund, but it could have been so much more.
But the government does ‘recognise the importance’ of environmental protection, Mr Darling assured us.
On biofuels, the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation goes ahead next month ignoring the pleas of the RSPB, more than 14,000 RSPB supporters, groups including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, Prof John Beddington - the government’s new Chief Scientific Advisor - and the UN.
All of us have warned that the demand for biofuel from Europe and the States is hastening damage to rainforest, savannah, peatlands and grasslands worldwide, despite the production of many of those fuels increasing not cutting greenhouse gases.
Disappearing with those unique habitats is rare wildlife, some of it found no-where else. Professor David Suzuki wrote in the Guardian last week that more than 50,000 species were going extinct every year.
On carbon targets, the Chancellor announced (again) that the 60 per cent target for cutting gas emissions by 2050 would be reviewed and could be raised to 80 per cent. A tentative step forward but one that would not have been necessary had 80 per cent been the target for the Climate Change Bill from the start.
The budget guaranteed an inflationary rise in the climate change levy – the charge on suppliers of lighting, heating and power - which at least means it won’t go down.
And on the EU’s much maligned emissions trading scheme, Mr Darling confirmed the governments desire to auction all carbon allowances from the electricity sector - a decision to be made in Brussels.
This could reap billions of pounds for EU governments but it is not clear where that money will go and how it will be used and especially if it will be used to improve energy efficiency and fund other measures to combat climate change.
The delay in raising fuel duty by 2p/litre was no surprise and very much a sop to the powerful motoring lobby. The new pollution tax bands for cars were better but the switch from air passenger duty to a charge per flight was pure greenwash. Payment per flight will increase anyway given the level of government support for airport expansion. At least charities were also placed in the let-off-the-hook box, albeit at the last minute. The Chancellor is retaining the same level of Gift Aid, which left the RSPB and the other 190,000 UK charities breathing a heavy sigh of relief.