One week of watching the new Discovery Channel spin-off network Planet Green was all television critic Troy Patterson could take before, as he tells it, he "want[ed] to go out and kill a dolphin."

Why such a harsh reaction to a network supposedly dedicated to saving the planet? Because the network's shows have turned our concern for the environment into "an upper-middle-class privilege and a status marker." Case and point: That they've enlisted HBO star Adrian Grenier to explain how doing good things for our planet fits right in with his asshole Entourage lifestyle.

In one episode [of Alter Eco], Grenier chills with a dude—obviously a douche bag, just a biodegradable one—who is constructing an eco-friendly pleasure dome in the hills of Los Angeles, a Playboy Mansion with organic bunny feed. We're told that the water from the showers will be treated and reused to water the garden, and also that the shower in the master bath will be spacious enough to accommodate 19 honeys. Elsewhere, some of the crew goes to an organic wine tasting, where they swill in a most obnoxious fashion. There are "great little tips" for exercising greenly, such as doing pull-ups on the limb of a tree. People seeking material gain are exhorted to "make that cheddar." It's impossible to say whether the show's smug superiority is more grating than its anorexic thinness of content, but seeing them in combination may fill you with a kind of retributive rage. [Slate]