Reading Online: Green or Not? It depends...

Cartoon of Newspaper cutting trees

Is reading online instead of on paper green? Well, according to research by Slate's Green Lantern (aka Brendan I. Koerner), it depends. It makes a difference what you compare to, but there are also many assumptions made by proponents of both sides that aren't always convincing. The situation isn't clear cut (no pun intended)...

You can read the whole thing over at Slate. We tend to agree with the pro-online side, not only because we're a website, but because computers are used for so much more than just reading newspapers and the environmental benefits of making information widely available and connecting like-minded people is vastly underestimated. In general, we also think that books are a better use of paper than newspapers since they have a much longer useful life. Cartoon: Slate