Rolling Stone Finding Enviroleft Hard to Please

Since the left has, in Alexander Cockburn's words, become "entranced by the allure of weather as revolutionary agent" comparisons between liberal globalwarmingism and socialism are becoming increasingly apt.

One of those comparisons comes on the question of income inequality and environmental correctness. No radical leftist can tell you just how far the government should go to "fix" this "problem." They won't be satisfied unless there is a mass redistribution which is why attempts to placate them on this account are fruitless. It's the paradox of the moderate. When you accept the premise of the extreme, you are often bound to their results.

The same paradox has come around and bit Rolling Stone magazine in the butt recently as its efforts to become more environmentally correct simply aren't working:

[A]s Rolling Stone and others try to be green, they draw criticism from environmentalists who think that if this is walking the walk, it is doing so with a pronounced limp.

Rolling Stone will be printed on what it calls “carbon neutral paper,” because it is made through a process that the magazine claims adds no carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The paper, which is considerably thinner than what Rolling Stone uses now, is made by a Canadian mill, Catalyst Paper, that the magazine says has reduced greenhouse-gas emissions by 82 percent since 2005 and been cited by the World Wildlife Fund for its conservation efforts.

Catalyst offsets the small amount of carbon released in making the paper by planting trees that will not be harvested for more paper, but rather left standing to help cool the climate, said Lyn Brown, a vice president at Catalyst.

What neither an editor’s note in Rolling Stone nor a press release sent by the magazine mentions, however, is that the new paper has no recycled content, which prompted a mixed review by Frank Locantore, director of the Magazine Paper Project at Co-op America, a nonprofit group that works with publishers to reduce paper use.

“Are the steps that Rolling Stone is taking good and important ones?” Mr. Locantore asked. “Yes. But what I’m afraid they are doing in the process is diverting attention away from the need to use recycled paper.” He added, “All the evidence shows that the greatest ecological and social benefits come from using recycled paper.”

My guess is that the enviroleft won't be satisfied until Rolling Stone stops printing altogether. It's also worth noting that this article comes from the New York Times which would similarly find itself out of business--the reason the paper is capable of understanding the left is going to far on this issue.