Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio have been trying to warn us for years, but the message has never been more clear:  Global Warming is going to screw us.

I’m not really one discriminate, but there’s something so sexy about a man who takes care of the environment. Just the thought of planting trees together gets me going.  His strong hands covered in dirt, biceps bulging as he lowers the shovel into the ground, his body sweating… Is it hot in here or is it just global warming?

Call me a tree hugger if you want, but I would gladly hug (naked hug?) any of these earth friendly hotties. So reduce, reuse and recycle and then sit back and relax while you admire our Earth Day gift to you. (Click on the image to get see the boys in all their earth-loving splendor.)

So why aren’t we celebrating?? Get into the spirit! Be environmentally friendly. Throw a party hotter than global warming. Make your friends green with envy. Reduce your work load…. Okay, you get the idea. Now get out there and get ready to celebrate with these Earth Day ideas.

1. Skip the morning shower and go for the hippie-chic look instead.

2. Break out some candles, some home-made booze and throw an Amish theme party! Who conserves energy better than people who don’t believe in it?

3. Reward your favorite eco-hottie with a global-warming make out sesh.

4. Talk the local produce guy into giving you an Earth Day discount, then invite your friends over for an earth-friendly veggie fest.

5. Recycle the mountain of Coors Light cans you’ve been stashing.

6. Make hemp jewelry with your favorite stoner friend.

7. Boycott your classes. Do you know how wasteful college campuses are?

8. Don’t go anywhere you can’t get to on a bike. Work is too far away? Darn, looks like you’ll have to take off for Earth Day.

The event is going to be moderated by NBC’s Tom Brokaw, but instead of Tommy asking the questions, the debate will have a town hall format.

Which means the people get to ask the questions.

So, people of Nashville who will be sitting pretty in the town hall-y debate, if you are reading this, we have a few questions we’d like to ask the candidates. Real questions that require real answers instead of that fluff Gwen Ifill came up with (and Sarah Palin dodged) during the VP “debate.”

1. Honestly, do you think President Bush was qualified to run this country? If not, how does that make you feel now? How badly would you hate yourself if you lost?

2. Inquiring minds want to know: Peanut Butter Crunch or Crunch Berries?

3. If you could only change one thing during your term as President (and money was not an issue), what would it be?

4. When SNL makes fun of you, does it hurt?

5. Barack, do you really eat 4-6 eggs a day, or are you a p*ssy who only eats the whites?

6. Tell us, McCain, what have you learned from living through the Civil War, WW1, WW2, Vietnam and the current Iraq sitch?

7. Would you rather have George Bush walk in on you having sex, or walk in on he and Laura doin’ the naughty dance?

8. What would you do to Osama Bin Laden if you had him in your office right now (and no one was watching)?

9. Would you eat PB slices?

10. Do you really like holding babies/shaking people’s hands/hugging creepy strangers, or is it all an act?

11. You both claim to want to fix the current Global Warming problem, yet you both tool around this country on airplanes/in giant buses. How can you justify that?

12. Is there any money left in either of your budgets to help Amy Winehouse?

As I continue to try and wrap my head around Sarah Palin, the GOP’s newest Vice Presidential pick (“a woman making strides toward the white house, good!”, “a woman who thinks the government has the right to tell her what her reproductive rights are, bad!”), a few wayward comments flying around the internet and media have gotten me really confused.  According to sources, Palin is on record stating that global warming is not man made, and that polar bears aren’t endangered

…What?

“A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location.” Palin stated as early as a few weeks ago to a conservative magazine for it’s September issue. “I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.”

As a moderate liberal, I can often support Republicans and Independents, as long as I believe their brain is in the right place. The thing is…denying humans have anything to do with global warming, and working to keep polar bears off the endangered list goes beyond politics and veers into …well…complete and utter wrongness.

“The state of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent listing of polar bears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin announced. She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polar bear habitat off the state’s northern and northwestern coasts.”

“Palin argued that there is not enough evidence to support a listing. Polar bears are well-managed and their population has dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation, she said.”

Alaskan oil is more important than protecting wildlife?  Wildlife that has met the unfortunate conclusion time and time  and time again of drastic decrease or even full extinction in the next 50 years?

How is McCain and crew (not to mention Palin herself) going to twist her statements into sounding even remotely with the times?  You know who else thinks global warming is propaganda, and could give a rat’s ass about the polar bears?  My next door neighbor.  Who’s 85.  And who thinks the birds on the telephone wires are communicating directly with NASA.

Even though I’m proud of the fact that old white dudes are finally taking women seriously, I’ve been wary of Plain from the beginning, and this new information has done nothing to assuage my fears. Palin may be a powerful woman, but she ain’t no Hillary, and she certainly ain’t no environmentalist.

2. Because you’ve always wondered: what WOULD happen if the earth was ravaged by global warming? Wall-E is the last robot on planet earth, hundreds of years after humans have abandoned it. Due to our race’s excess (the landscape is dominated by the corporation “Buy n’ Large”), the environment has been ruined. The earth is covered in garbage, and there are no living beings left besides cockroaches. Kinda makes you think about all the stuff we throw away.

3. Because who knew a robot could be so damn cute? Whether he’s protecting his girl-crush, Eve, from the rain or using a garbage can lid as a hat to dance along to a “Hello Dolly” video tape, I found myself wanting to hug the little guy. Yeah, I said it.

4. Because Eve, the shiny new robot sent to earth to find signs of life, is a great female role model. She’s tough (her arm doubles as some kind of super-powered ray gun) but sweet, and smart as hell. Watch her kick a** and fall for the lovable Wall-E, all while saving them, and the planet, from destruction.

5. Because…anything is better than “The Love Guru”.

Easy on the eyeliner, LC.

Reality TV has even gotten to the smart people — the world has hit it’s ultimate demise (minus all the Globla Warming brew-ha-ha.)

Yale Law School is attempting to set a world record for the most people gathered in one spot dressed as Lauren Conrad.

Uh, do we really need another one?

Maybe YALE doesn’t have legging/headband, layered-necklace wearing chicks, but if you walk into any mall in America you’ll find LC lookalikes rummaging through Forever 21 and Claires like rioters after a flood.

I’d prefer they stay and hibernate there. We don’t need any more people immitating “faux celebrities.”

…However, the invite does mention something about free eyeliner. Hm. Maybe those genius kids at Yale are onto something.

If you truly desire the ability to dress like LC, check out this eHow.com article.

I have been spreading the word for months (like here) in hopes that I can get other people on board with me. Not because it is trendy or “in” right now, but because we don’t want our children to have to deal with such a mess of a planet later….or burst into flames because the earth has gotten so hot.

And I have met a lot of apprehension along the way:

“But I really love my Hummer.”

“It’s so hard to be earth friendly!”

“GO HUG A TREE!”

“Ew. Reuse someone else’s PAPER?!”

Ah; ignorance. How I loathe thee.

If people just sat down and listened for a few minutes they would realize just how simple it is to be earth friendly. I am not asking people to reuse their Ziploc bags (which I get made fun of for all the time) or stop using toilet paper. I am asking people to make teensy tiny changes to their daily routines that make virtually no difference to the user and a huge difference to the planet.

Since I last wrote about green items such as compact fluorescent bulbs and reusable grocery bags, a whole slew of new earth friendly products have surfaced. These hot new items are innovative, made from recycled products (to cut down on excess waste!) and yet another few easy ways for you to get a bit more green-ified. The best part, obviously, is that they don’t look like crunchy “Save the Planet” items; these are things you actually need and want.

1. Ashley Watson Bags: I know I mentioned these before, but they are so sexy I just had to show em off again. Recycled leather, my friends. Need I say more?

2. Preserve Razor Triple: Step away from the Quattro and all the wasted plastic used to make and package it. Opt for a recycled razor instead. The Preserve Razor Triple is made from recycled Stoneyfield Farm yogurt cups (which also happens to be an eco-friendly organic brand!)

3. Preserve Tumblers: The yogurt cups are coming back for round two with these recycled cups. Wouldn’t beer pong be so much more fun if you knew that the cups you were playing with were made from recycled materials (and could be recycled again?!) Imagine how much less trash there would be without the millions of wasted red solo cups being thrown out daily.

4. Recycled Socks: Ok, so people may be able to tell you’ve gone a little earthy in these little guys, but how awesome are they? Socks made out of ground up t-shirts? They are supposed to be extra cushy and durable, which make these the perfect workout accessory.

With new products like these popping up, going green is getting easier every day. And the excuses not to go green are slowly slipping away.

Liberal Arts schools are famous for these types of classes. Being a graduate of a Liberal A. myself, I made sure to take every weird course I could find. Every class with a half-written syllabus, opened ended final, or that was team-taught—I took. And let me tell you, those were some of the best wasted hours of my college career.

Wesleyan, one of the “Most Annoying Liberal Arts Schools” out there, currently has one of the best examples of a weird course I’ve heard in a long time. The reason this example is so good? It’s explanation is as pretentious as it’s description is redonkulous.

Course Name: Feet to the Fire: the Art and Science of Climate Change

Category: Biology

Cross Listed With: Dance

Description: As quoted by Gawker, the first lines of the course description are as follows: “Feet to the Fire is an intensive, interdisciplinary course that melds scientific and choreographic inquiry in pursuit of one of the most important topics facing society: climate change due to global warming”

Class Layout: “Classroom and laboratory sessions”, with a neighboring landfill acting as said laboratory.

What Exactly is Going to Happen (in a really wordy way): “With an emphasis on the body and its relationship with its environment, participants will have an opportunity to consider the multiple layers of histories, time and memory layered within the landfill and the continuing impact of this changing environment on the body. Students will learn modern scientific and kinesthetic tools for assessing environmental conditions, ecological responses changing in time and space. The methods of scientific deduction and choreographic composition will be applied to metaphor and meaning of climate change.”

In Layman’s Terms: This class will focus on creating an interpretive dance that describes what it’s like to be a landfill and why global warming sucks.

…I mean, if this isn’t the best class ever, I don’t know what is.

Lately, it seems everywhere you turn people are turning green. Not nausea induced green (though that may be true if you are enjoying a nice long Welcome Week and hangovers abound), but earth-friendly green.

Whether it be celebrities like Leo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt or the aisles upon aisles of green products at stores around the country, saving the planet isn’t just for tree-huggers anymore.

And as you hear about all the celebs buying Hybrid cars and cities banning bottled water due to the excessive amounts of waste they create, you have to stop and wonder what your impact on the planet is.

Most likely: it isn’t good.

And it isn’t just the gas guzzling SUVs lack of recycling that is causing the earth to warm, the animals to lose their habitats and the weather to go buck wild. No; it is the little things that we don’t realize we are doing that have the biggest negative impact on this planet. Like leaving our computers on. Or pumping the A/C with the windows open.

As I mentioned before, changing even the smallest things we do can have a ginormous (it’s officially a word!) positive impact on our lovely little planet. So here are a few more easy things you can do to ensure that our children (and their children) don’t burst into flames when they step outside in the future.

1. Use Online Billing: I never thought about it before, but the amount of paper wasted on bills is absurd. By switching your billing option to “online only” you eliminate both the actual bill being sent to you and the envelope/check you send back in to pay it. It is so easy and, if everyone does it, such a great way to save millions of trees.

2. Unplug Your Sh#t: I used to leave my hair dryer, straightner, computer, cell phone charger, iPod charger, toaster, coffee maker, etc…. all plugged in all the time. I never thought that they would be sucking power the entire time, regardless if they were on or even charging anything at the moment. Turns out, they do. In fact, a ton of energy is wasted powering things that don’t need to be powered! Unplugging your shit not only saves energy, but also saves you money on your electricity bill. Cha Ching!

3. Turn Off Your Computer: We all love a little away message action when we are out of the house, but is it really necessary? Just read #2. Powering off your computer (or at least sending it to sleep) will save tons of energy. (P.S. Saving energy means less pollution from all those coal power plants that produce the energy you use.)

4. Take an Eco Run: This will get you and the planet in shape. And the extra bending to pick up the garbage has to make this workout better than a typical run.

These steps are so simple that even the most anti-granola kid can do ‘em. And if you don’t care about the future of our planet (asshole), these steps will also help you save some money. Join the rest of the world and start going green. It is totally becoming the new black.