The Daily Green Announces Its Inaugural Heart of Green Award Winners

NEW YORK, April 14 /PRNewswire/ -- In honor of Earth Day and the first year anniversary of the launch of TheDailyGreen.com (http://www.TheDailyGreen.com/), the site today announced the winners of The Heart of Green Awards, honoring people and organizations from all fields who in the last year have, through their work and deeds, helped take the "green is good" message to the mainstream, or to the "heart" of the American people.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080414/NYM124 )

TheDailyGreen.com chose a richly diverse group of honorees for its inaugural year, taking a slightly non-traditional approach by honoring not only key environmentalists, journalists, politicians and business leaders, but also Lisa Simpson, the famous yellow greenie from "The Simpsons" and The Onion for faux eco-reporting. TheDailyGreen.com also announced a special award for those people whose messages, though important to hear, are not yet ready for prime time. There is also inclusion of people whose "hearts" are decidedly not green.

"With so much attention directed to an intellectual and scientific understanding of the environmental threats to the climate and to our personal health, there has been less attention paid to the role that capturing the heart and imagination of people can play in raising eco-awareness and action," says Deborah Jones Barrow, founder of TheDailyGreen.com. "Therefore, The Heart of Green Awards are meant to highlight accomplishments that touch an emotional chord with people, in the belief that rekindling our lost love affair with the earth, its creatures and its peoples, is a fundamental step in making going green a mainstream pursuit."

TheDailyGreen.com's Heart of Green Awards are also being exclusively cross-posted on MSN Green (green.msn.com) as part of that site's Earth Day eco-coverage. Visitors to the MSN Green Channel will be able to participate in a poll selecting their favorite environmentally focused Hollywood stars. TheDailyGreen.com is a syndication partner of MSN Green.

TheDailyGreen.com inaugural 2008 Heart of Green Awards honor the following people who have shared their passion for making the world a better and healthier place for future generations. For more information on each honoree, visit http://www.TheDailyGreen.com/.

    Heroes:
       -- The Humane Society of the United States for the undercover video of
          the Hallmark Meat Packing and Westland Meat Co.


    Politics:
       -- Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco, for putting San Francisco on
          the vanguard of civic greening


    Media:
       -- Anderson Cooper for CNN's Planet in Peril
       -- Anne Thompson for Environmental Journalism at NBC Universal
       -- Kevin Rose and Jay Andelson for providing a platform for
          eco-warriors on Digg.com


    Author:
       -- Michael Pollan for In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto


    Hollywood:
       -- Leonardo DiCaprio for the "11th Hour"
       -- Adrian Grenier for taking green to TV
       -- Hayden Panettiere for protesting dolphin kills
       -- Brad Pitt for helping build a new New Orleans
       -- Lisa Simpson for being the eco-star in The Simpsons Movie
       -- Neil Young for his bio-fuel, plug-in hybrid electric car


    Comedy:
       -- The Onion for its video, How Can We Make the War in Iraq More
          Eco-Friendly?


    Business:
       -- Sir Richard Branson for making Virgin-Atlantic an eco-leader
       -- Ron Jarvis for Eco-Options at The Home Depot


    Environmentalist:
       -- Bill McKibben for the Step It Up Campaign


    Food:
       -- Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon for 100 Mile Dieters


    Weather:
       -- Heidi Cullen for Forecast Earth on the Weather Channel

TheDailyGreen.com is also announcing two related awards, The Heartburn of Green Award, a special award given to those groups or individuals with whom society may not always agree, but whose messages deserve to be heard and The Heartless Award, recognizing those who make "Green is Good" sound bad.

    This year's Heartburn of Green honorees are:
       -- Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping, for the
          mockumentary, "What Would Jesus Buy?"
       -- TheOilDrum.com for its daily analysis of the scary front lines of
          the peak oil debate
       -- Colin Beavan, the No Impact Man, for giving up life's luxuries, like
          toilet paper


    The Heartless Award goes to:
       -- Rush Limbaugh for still using "environmentalist" and "wacko" in the
          same sentence
       -- Earth Liberation Front for being nothing but terrorists
       -- Senator James Inhofe for his priceless 'Global warming is the
          greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" quote
       -- Ohio Department of Agriculture for looking for ways to make it hard
          for consumers to choose milk from cows not treated with
          controversial artificial hormones banned in Japan, Europe and Canada

Reader Poll on TheDailyGreen.com and MSN Green

The Daily Green and MSN Green are joining forces on a special reader poll that will finally ask the question: Which star do you think has a Heart of Green? Starting on April 14, readers of both The Daily Green and MSN Green are giving readers the opportunity to vote for their favorite celebrity environmentalist. Voting will be tabulated and the winners announced on Earth Day. Visit http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/hollywood-stars- environmental-poll-5381 (Due to the length of the link, please copy and paste into your browser).

TheDailyGreen.com is a combination of a mainstream media site and a grassroots, blog-based, community-centric site that is a comprehensive, one-stop eco-resource for environmental news, tips and information. TheDailyGreen.com launched as Hearst Magazines' first pure-play, non-magazine brand Web site and is part of a growing stable of newly launched or acquired Web sites at Hearst, including 14 magazine sites, as well as eSPIN.com, MisQuinceMag.com, RealAge.com and Kaboodle.com.

TheDailyGreen.com is part of Hearst Magazines Digital Media, a unit of Hearst Magazines dedicated to creating and implementing the digital online and mobile strategy for Hearst's magazine brands and other sites which serve the company's consumers and audience.

Hearst Corporation, the parent company of Hearst Magazines, has been at the forefront of raising awareness for and addressing environmental concerns. Among Hearst's accomplishments on the environmental front, the most recognized are the company's completion of Hearst Tower, the first gold LEED certified building in New York (honored by Global Green USA); partnering with the State of California, California Rangeland Trust and American Land Conservancy in 2005 to form the largest conservation easement (http://www.hearstranchconservation.org) in history (82,000 acres) in San Simeon, Calif.; and participating in philanthropic tree planning through National Arbor Day Foundation (www.arborday.org) and New York Restoration Project. Riverkeeper (www.riverkeeper.org), vice chaired by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., honored Hearst in 2007 for its support of the organization.