Black, White and Green All Over

By LESLIE WHITAKER

Most environmentalists espouse recycling, but Andre Carothers, editor of the bimonthly Greenpeace, implores his readers to pass the magazine on to friends or institutions before letting it go to the shredder. Now Carothers himself is looking for a wider audience for Greenpeace, which normally serves as a bonus house organ for 2 million members of its eponymous environmental organization. Last week he started to put some 20,000 copies of the publication on national ! newsstands and in bookstores, hoping to attract new readers with "information and avenues for action that are useful to the movement and the planet."

Carothers is not alone. Suddenly, a freshet of environmental publications -- some old, like Greenpeace, some new -- is striving for a mainstream audience, feeding on the growing awareness of a planetary threat. "The world is going to hell, and people are reading about soap operas," scolds Doug Moss, founder of E, a year-old bimonthly (circ. 75,000), who sees his competition as "fluff magazines that I wish would go away." New titles like Garbage, Buzzworm and Design Spirit -- all aimed at general readers -- have joined Audubon, Mother Earth News and other more established journals that have recently increased their emphasis on environmental concerns.

Greenpeace is the most opinionated of the new group. The current issue attacks Senator Richard Lugar and Congressman Kika de la Garza for allegedly helping allow imported vegetables to be treated with chemicals banned in the U.S. and derides U.S. News & World Report for promoting the views of a nuclear-industry coalition. Redesigned to enhance its appeal to general readers, the 28-page journal, which sells for $1.95, still resembles a house organ more than a slick consumer magazine. It is packed with reporting on the politics of nuclear testing, firsthand accounts of Greenpeace nautical confrontations with the Soviets and surprisingly attractive graphics. But it suffers from an overreliance on unnamed and Greenpeace-connect ed sources for its allegations and opinions.

Garbage, a Brooklyn-based bimonthly that has increased its circulation 50%, to 150,000, in its first year of publication, generally limits its advocacy to environmental consumerism. Articles focus on practical topics like designing kitchens for recycling and gardening without pesticides. Publisher Patricia Poore says she provides "tips and tools" for readers who "want to get off the consume-it, then trash-it treadmill." E, a bimonthly based in Norwalk, Conn., publishes a mixture of opinion and news articles and openly encourages political activism. At the end of a story about whale hunting, for instance, readers are invited to lobby for legislation that would protect the endangered mammals. By contrast, Buzzworm, a Boulder-based bimonthly (circ. 75,000), shies away from editorializing. "We're the only magazine that doesn't take a stand," boasts publisher Joseph Daniels. Instead the magazine specializes in photo spreads of wildlife and exotic locations.

In line with their high-minded mission, almost all the ecomagazines are printed on recycled paper. Greenpeace accepts no advertising, and E takes ads only from makers of such products as cotton grocery bags and organic popcorn. Some of the other magazines are less restrictive, so long as an advertiser's message is judged to be environmentally sound. "Even a little bit of good from a bad company is good," says Daniels. None of the new titles have yet produced anything but red ink. Still their publishers are optimistic. Says Poore: "Given the information, people tend to do the right thing." So far as she and the other ecopublishers are concerned, green is the color of the future.