You go green, girl.

A couple of years back, the satirical newspaper The Onion posited that the entire audience of Oprah Winfrey's television program would secede from the United States and form a new nation called Yogogirl, with the former Chicago, Illinois as its capital (because that's where Ms. Winfrey lives and where her show is produced).

Now the Oprah Nation is making like the Suzuki Nation and going green.

You can't get much more of a convincing example that being environmentally responsible and aware is now a mainstream, Main Street pursuit than this. It's got stars (Sheryl Crow, Matt Damon) doing their part for the planet, along with plenty of practical tips and service segments about simple changes anybody can make to reduce ecological impact and lighten their load on the biosphere.

And everybody in the audience got a free canvas bag, so that the answer to "paper or plastic?" is now, "Neither, thanks -- brought my own."

As one of our colleagues here said after watching Oprah's green episode, "I guess we're not seen as crazy treehuggers anymore."

Also this week, NBC's suppertime broadcast of record, "Nightly News," anchored by Brian Williams, is running a series about being environmentally responsible, too.

In both instances, Oprah and NBC Nightly, let us not forget that it's May sweeps, when station and network ratings are closely monitored to set advertising rates. That would seem to suggest that this greenery is not only reflecting what people want in terms of content, it's something programmers figure will swell audiences and drive up ratings.