plentyeditor’s letter
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Plenty is now a little more than three years
old. In the short time that we have been publishing, the environmental movement and
what it means to be green have changed considerably. When we announced our tagline
of “It’s Easy Being Green” in the summer of
2005, we weren’t necessarily convinced that
it was all that easy—it was meant to urge
others on to make some significant changes
to their impact on the planet.
We don’t take sole credit for it, but the
idea that “It’s Easy Being Green” sure took
off. Mentions of the phrase have appeared
throughout the media landscape over the last
three years. Al Gore aside, it didn’t hurt that
Kermit the Frog, after complaining for years
about how difficult it was being green, suddenly changed his mind upon seeing a Ford
Escape Hybrid in the company’s famous
Super Bowl ad at the start of 2006. There
were other changes going on as well. Gas
prices were rising, and Hurricane Katrina
showed some of the potential impact that
global warming might already be having on
our planet. People started to look for ways to
bring about changes in their lives.
Making the right decision for the planet
is not always clear (see our cover story,
“Monkeying with the Message,” p. 66), but
the idea that there are a multitude of simple
solutions we can all implement in our lives
has certainly caught on. So we figured now
is the time to take the next step.
This issue has gone through a dramatic
redesign. To start with, we have reduced the
size of the magazine by an inch. This move
will lighten our environmental impact considerably by reducing the amount of paper we
use (which is still 85–100 percent recycled),
and lessening the energy it takes to ship the
magazine (for which we still offset the carbon
emissions). We also thought we should have a
look and feel that reflect a new green sensibility in which a relationship to the Earth’s wellbeing has become a defining part of modern
living. Finally, we have selected a new tag
line: “The World in Green.” The green movement is certainly global—in fact, it’s stronger in many parts of Europe than it is here
in North America—so while the magazine
still aims to offer you easy solutions to implement in your life, moving forward, we’ll also
endeavor to describe the incredible changes
that are sweeping the planet. And we’ll aim
to broaden horizons by examining where
environmental concerns meet the worlds of
arts, business, travel, and more.
Plenty has always been a celebration of
a certain kind of abundance—the renewable kind. And to us it reflects the Ameri can
Dream. Think: the Land of Plenty. As Americans seek to reinvent what the Land of
Plenty means today, just as they have many
times before, we want to present these
changes and points of view. Whether that
involves cleaning up once-unspoiled rivers
or taking the first shaky steps toward moving away from an oil-based economy, we’ll
offer a vision of what a country or world
that is truly plentiful might look like. In this
sense, even with a new look and feel, our
mission remains the same.
Mark Spellun