Carbon Copy (or, Stop the Presses!)
Sunday, April 19th, 2009There are a number of obvious downsides to the idea of the Boston Globe following in the footsteps of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and going to an online-only format. However, there would be one obvious upside: it would be so much better for the environment.
A carbon-neutral Globe would be a less hypocritical Globe, would it not? The paper is clearly on the side of the environmentalist left: one star Globe columnist, Ellen Goodman, infamously wrote two years ago that “…we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.”
Presumably, Goodman is somewhat troubled by the amount of resources that must be consumed by the Globe in order to distribute her words of wisdom to the masses. So why not ease Goodman’s conscience? The environmentalist left would applaud the Globe if it decided to go online-only.
The Globe shouldn’t be alone in this effort to go carbon-neutral. Imagine how many physical resources could be saved if the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today became online-only operations. Despite the failure of the Times‘ TimesSelect concept a few years back, these entities could develop an effective way to charge for content: I’d certainly pay to read David Brooks and Jeff Jacoby.
From a certain perspective, the American newspaper industry has been one of the most irresponsible business entities around with regard to its treatment of the environment. Once the Internet became popular in earnest, why didn’t these media entities consider moving to an online-only format in the name of protecting the environment? At least a decade’s worth of resource consumption could have been avoided. The newspaper business should have been more proactive on this issue in the late-1990s; perhaps the industry would have avoided some of the perils it is currently experiencing.
Consider the activism of another liberal-leaning industry on environmental issues. For the last few years Hollywood has made an effort to reduce the number of natural resources consumed by film and television productions. The television show 24 and the 2008 films The Incredible Hulk and the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still are prominent examples of productions where efforts were made to limit resource consumption.
Hollywood understood that there’s nothing more important than putting one’s money where one’s mouth is in terms of environmental consciousness. Wouldn’t it be something if the Globe and other major newspapers did the same?
Yes, if the Globe went online-only it would be a break with tradition. So what? We break with tradition all the time in this society because we determine that there are certain values more important than tradition. The concept of same-sex marriage, for example, is a break with tradition, but the Boston Globe itself has advocated this concept, on the grounds that equal treatment under the law for gays and lesbians is a more important value than tradition.
If going online-only is too radical of a change right now, perhaps the Globe should just gradually reduce the number of papers the company prints daily until enough Bay Staters have become accustomed to going to the website first. Incrementalism is the coin of the realm for the left, no? Perhaps incrementalism could work in this case.
An eventual movement to an online-only format wouldn’t really be a burden for most Bay Staters, would it? How many Massachusetts residents already use Boston.com to read the paper instead of buying the physical copy? Heck, how many Massachusetts residents already think of the Boston Globe as an online-only operation?
If the Boston Globe really wants to save the planet, it should seriously consider moving to an online-only format. The nation’s other major newspapers should also think about being effective stewards of the environment in this manner.