But this weekend’s inaugural Go Green Expo — the self-proclaimed "largest green living and sustainability event ever to hit NYC" — is one of much nobler ilk.

Headquartered at the Hilton New York, the Expo will have over 250 booths manned by activists, inventors, authors, entrepreneurs, artists, interior designers, scholars, clothiers, food technologists, tour operators and beaucoup others all trying to sell you on the next pet rock: The planet Earth.

"We’re kicking ass," says organizer Bradford Rand, a seasoned trade showsman/born-again environmentalist who decided to go to war with the oil and cigarette companies, the Bush administration, whalers, shark fin hunters and even China after watching Al Gore’s "An Inconvenient Truth."

"Besides the light bulbs and hybrids cars, we’ll have eco-friendly deodorants, toothpaste, clothes — when 30 percent of [China’s] lakes and river water isn’t ‘industrially usable’, meaning not fit to wash your car with, something is wrong with the world," he says.

A few of the cutting edge products you’ll find at on the floor at Go Green are organic candy bars, organic denim, "green" baby clothes — the works. But gimmicky consumerism aside, at the end of the day Rand sees his expo as a chance to sell environmentalism as a moral imperative: "If the government pulled Tylenol off the shelves because of a handful of poisonings in the ‘80s, why aren’t we doing the same thing to fossil fuels and other deadly chemicals that have killed millions?"

Also sentenced to hang were Rand to hold a Nuremberg trial would be the kind of day-to-day chemicals that come in table cleaners. "You don’t spray Pledge into your child’s mouth," Rand says. "Why would you want them wiping their hands in it — the hands they eat with?" Safe cleaners will especially be highlighted at the expo.

Besides all of the above, expect the kind of multimedia insanity you’d expect of a midtown blow-out needed to keep the expected thousands of attendees entertained: movies, music, panels, lively speeches given by pop culture eco-messiahs like Josh Dorfman (a.k.a. The Lazy Environmentalist).

And because it ain’t no party until it’s a Spacek party, you’ll find Sissy wandering around somewhere in there, as well.

Info: The Hilton Hotel New York, 1335 Ave. of the Americas between W. 53rd and W. 54th. Saturday 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Admission is $10/day, $15 for both; children under the age of 12 are free; gogreenexpo.com

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HIPPIES THEN & NOW

SURE, there are still hippies who live in trees and defecate in buckets. But these days, that’s the exception, not the rule.

Just don't call today’s incarnation "neo-hippies". They’re "ecoists" — that’s the going term, anyway, coined on a dopey blog, no doubt -- and unlike their predecessors, they value hygiene. Shave. Deodorize. Have money. Drive cars. And consume, consume, consume in the capitalist global marketplace like any good patriot.

But unlike yuppies, they do so not at the expense of the environment — they have their organic cake, and eat it to. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the ghosts of Hippies past and present.

CARS

1967 VW Beetle — $1,640 -VS- 2008 Lexus LS Hybrid — $104,000

ROMANCE

"Make love, not war" –VS- Craigslist Casual Encounters

FESTIVALS

Woodstock -VS- Idol Gives Back

BIBLES

Mao Zedong’s "Little Red Book" –VS- "What's a book?"

DRUGS

LSD –VS- Adderall

FEMALE ICONS

Janis Joplin –VS- Obama Girl

DIET

Commune rice –VS- Tofurkey

FATHERLAND

People’s Park in Berkeley –VS- Daily Koz

LINGO

Far out –VS- Crunk

LEADERS

Jerry Garcia -VS- Bono

ENEMIES

Kent State National Guard –VS- Fox News