It's Sickening What They're Doing To Life On This Planet (Especially If You Just Want To Live)

"If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to talk about deforestation, does it represent a missed marketing opportunity? Yes, answers the week-old cable network Planet Green, a Discovery Channel spinoff now available in 50 million homes. The New York Times quotes Planet Green's general manager calling its fare "eco-tainment," and there you have it. Concern for the environment is, among other things, an upper-middle-class privilege and a status marker. Planet Green turns the entire Earth into a lifestyle accessory, often to uniquely awful effect."

-- Troy Patterson, on the cultural bane of our time - now moving beyond television commercials - for Slate.com