Genuine or Greenwashing? The New Republic's Environment Issue

It's April, home of Earth Day, which means every magazine known to man is putting out a "green" issue.

Many are genuine efforts to educate their audience, which might not necessarily be plugged in to environmental concerns. Other magazines simply greenwash, slapping a pretty nature picture on the cover because they know it'll sell more copies at newsstands.

The New Republic's environment issue arrived in my mailbox last week and it's hard to fit it into either the "genuine" or "greenwashing" category. The content is solid, particularly Chris Mooney's Hard Science: Labratory geeks need to toughen up. But environmental content only fills about 11 of the magazine's 56 pages. By page count alone, it could just as easily be the Russia issue - articles about or related to Russia fill up about the same number of pages.

A much more promising development from The New Republic is their new Environment & Energy blog. Despite a brief controversy about sponsorship, the content has been solid and it's been a daily must-read for The Green Miles since discovering it last week (ironically enough, due to that very controversy).