But what about the process of printing those magazines.. Cutting the trees, ship to factories, factories turn them to papers, ships them to another factory, turn those papers into magazines, ships them across the world... IMO, it's just as bad...
Years ago, it wasn't just postage but rather exchange rate. The Canadian dollar was only worth about 75 cents USD; so one had to pay more in Canadian dollars to make it worth the equivalent USD, and to cover the postage too. Now, since the Canadian is so much stronger against the USD, the fact is, the price should actually be cheaper for Canadians. However, US publishers have traditionally charged more for Canadians so I don't think they're going to change their spots any time soon. I don't think there was ever any intent to screw Canuck customers; but it just worked out that way. As for charging you more, if they don't have a credit card to bill it too, they may just decide that it's an undeliverable order. On the other hand, they could also ship you the magazine at a loss, in the hopes that you will like it so much that you continue to subscribe, and renew at the Canadian rates. Either way, good luck and let us know how it turns out. No argument from me, it's tree killing at it's best. My point was, that most people don't realize that electronic files are also environmentally harmful.
you're certainly correct in that electricity isn't environmentally friendly, or rather, the process of generating electricity is not environmentally friendly. but to put in perspective, and as you probably know, one file is just a series of bits and bytes.. so small that the the energy to read/write those bits and bytes are practically negligible.. you are right in that the reaction of particles in electricity is not free, but its environmental influence is very minimal, negligible in fact... i believe the key issue here, is to compare the process of production between electricity and printed paper... electricity, obviously, is generated in plants that can either be run by nuclear or coal.. this is the cost on the environment that needs to be eliminated by finding alternative sources of energy to be used to create electricity.. however, with paper, the cost of creating paper, in terms of environment is just as bad, if not worse... the cost of fossil fuel used by heavy machinery used to cut and carry lumber to plants, and the cost of fossil fuel used to produce paper plus the electricity needed to run certain power tools in paper production (from the nuclear/coal plants)... furthermore, once printed, and once finished reading, the magazine becomes a pollutant, if not recycled... therefore imo, the sum of the effects on the environment of a magazine's production cycle and life cycle is much more environmentally threatening than the production of electricity PLUS the life cycle of a file.... all in all, reading the files isn't the problem, it's the creating of the electricity that is used to power your computer to read the files that is the problem.. but even at this time, the cost of electricity generation is still a MUCH better alternative in terms of the environment to printed magazines...... electricity is maybe not 100% environment friendly, but certainly much more improved than the alternative just my two cents
You're right of course, in that the amount of impact with reading the file once, is insignificant when compared to that of producing a magazine. However, a magazine, once produced, impacts the environment very little despite repeated usage; whereas that small file, with each subsequent use into perpetuity, has an additional cumulative negative effect. I agree that it isn't the file per se, but the electrical adjuncts necessary to access and display the information within the file, that each use becomes an energy loss. Of course, there are other sources of electrical energy (eg solar, wind, wave motion) that has near zero impact on the environment. However, by and large, we as a civilization haven't yet harnessed such low carbon burden sources of energy to any degree worth writing home about. Interesting discussion. -lol
true say, but say someone trashes a magazine (not recycling it), one of those trashed magazines (and im making a wild guess here), could be worth like opening one file 1 billion times (again, wild guess, to make a point -lol) i don't know about you, but im enjoying this discussion lol
actually bro... the key issue was me trying to hook people up with a really cheap magazine subscription -hay1. kidding aside, I too enjoy this thread, even if its gone totally off track at some points.
True that, sorry for the thread hijack. And you're right; aside from the Canadian angle, the five bucks that they're asking for an introductory subscription is a really great price indeed.
flame me then :rant: that's an input nonetheless, but is YOUR preference not to read it off the screen plus being greener not to order them in prints
lol anyway, just an update. It worked and I received my first subscription today. Next may when this comes around again i'll be getting several more subscriptions.
