In honor of Earth Day and the first year anniversary of the launch of 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.

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.

TheDailyGreen.com's Heart of Green Awards are also being exclusively cross-posted on MSN Green 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.

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