The jury is still out on the Free Press’ new tabloid format, which officially debuted today; but I eventually found all of the familiar landmarks and rather liked it’s table-friendly uniformity. We can only hope that the emphasis on “feature” stories will not cause the paper to economize on original staff writing and resort too frequently to the shallow pool of USA Today.
Case in point was page 10A, anointed the “Environment” page, which featured two hand-me-downs from USA Today by Wendy Koch. The first piece is an innocuous one on bike lanes, but the second fails to pass muster.
The Union of Concerned Scientists has produced a report about the relative carbon footprint of a wide range of human activities, which emphasizes the fact that individual decisions to permanently change behaviors in relatively small arenas can have a huge impact on the global condition:
What do you think the significant news is that Ms. Koch has gleaned from this scientific effort?
Food grown locally, rather than far away, supports area farmers and is often fresher, but it makes little difference in the fight against climate change…How about e-readers vs. print books? Or opening a new car’s windows rather than running its air conditioner? The answer’s the same in each case: There’s no big difference in which consumes less energy overall, so don’t sweat it.
Those are the opening observations in Ms. Koch’s brief overview of the study, which she says
“debunks the myths of the green lifestyle”
And who has the final word in Ms. Koch’s story? Why it’s the climate change deniers, of course!
Responding to the study’s authors, who quite reasonably argue that,
“Our failure to address this problem (climate change) will imperil us all.”
Ms. Koch allows David Kreutzer to dismiss the whole thing as malarky in the final two paragraphs of the piece. Mr. Kreutzer, whom Ms. Koch identifies as
a research fellow in energy economics and climate change at the Heritage Foundation, a self-described “conservative” think tank.
has this to say:
“I don’t think that’s true. There’s not a consensus we’re heading toward catastrophe,” Americans should cut their carbon footprint “if it makes them feel good,” but not because they fear for the future.
Was this simply a misdirected effort at “fair and balanced” reporting by a tabloid hack; or does it represent a deliberate effort at false equivalency in service to an increasingly conservative media conglomerate?
Only time will tell.
Unfortunately, there is no real evidence that local food production reduces carbon emissions – even for transportation. Local food production generally requires much more acreage, at the cost of natural habitat. It’s also MUCH more polluting to drive produce to a farmer’s market in an old van or pickup truck than it is to have tons of bananas shipped in a cargo ship and transported by larger tractor trailer tuck.
Everything in life has its advantages and disadvantages. Local food production has plenty going for it – but reducing our carbon footprint is not one of them.
Freakonomics did a good writeup on this:
http://www.freakonomics.com/20…
My dad is a well-known letter writer to the BFP. I met Brian Dubie at an event once and I told him who my dad was. He took a step back and said, “YOU’RE dad is (redacted)??!” My dad’s letters were well known to the Douglas Administration.
In recent years the BFP has not published his letters. He sent this to me, billing it as maybe his last:
we’ve had these strange green bags dropped on our doorstep and in front of the mailbox. Inside, the new Freeps.
What a rag. It blurs the editorial with the advertorial. The font changes all over the place. I had to double check I was still reading an article.
Guess they are sending them out free to anyone in BTV? I need to call and have it stopped. I don’t need anymore dead or recycled trees on my doorstep, nor all that plastic.
7days you are not.
Maybe try to be consistent with your content – same fonts, sizes, etc.
Maybe try to offer up some real VT content, and drop the AP and USA today feeds to a minimum.
And maybe, just maybe, have more ‘news’ than ‘sports’.