God bless Graydon Carter and his SUV

Media types are snotty about Vanity Fair's special green issue (May, "A Threat Graver Than Terrorism: Global Warming") -- evidently editor Graydon Carter doesn't drive an environmentally friendly car despite his call to eco-arms, and I must admit that Julia Roberts dressed like a wood nymph on the cover alongside Al Gore, George Clooney and Robert F. Kennedy seems a bit of a stretch. "Making the environment glamorous," sniffed an editor of my acquaintance. But she agreed that the issue is extremely well executed, and after reading it from cover to cover on a long bus trip yesterday, I was ready to run out and join the Sierra Club, or at least buy a solar-powered battery charger for my curling iron.

Yes, perhaps caring about climate change (or climate crisis, says one scientist in an attempt to subvert the customary understatement) is just fashionable at the moment, but it's equally possible that the topic's appearance in the forefront of the mainstream media in recent months means we are starting to take the situation seriously. The first time I saw headlines like "Ozone hole over Antarctica twice as big," or "Polar bears drowning by the dozens," it astounded me that they were buried inside the newspaper instead of being splashed above the fold in huge type. The lassitude of the frog-in-boiling-water analogy seemed trite, but apt.

Now another phrase that's become trite comes to mind: the VF issue feels like a tipping point, because the frogs who buy the magazine have a measure of control over the boiling water. True to its mandate, VF profiles some eco-celebs and, through photo manipulation, shows the wealthy what their homes in the Hamptons will look like under several feet of water. Carter and his team have managed to strike just the right balance of doomsaying and hope to keep readers' attention, particularly in Al Gore's carefully crafted essay (can you imagine George W. Bush writing an essay, carefully crafted or otherwise?). Gore tries not to preach to the converted; he appeals to the bottom-line interests of the non-tree-hugger, invoking Scripture ("Where there is no vision, the people perish") and Abraham Lincoln ("We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country") as well as the new jobs and profits that could result from finding ways to halt the crisis.

Michael Hertsgaard explores how politics and money succeeded in perpetrating the idea in the U.S. that global warming is "a liberal hoax." Of course, Michael Moore-like, he applauds Canada for ratifying the Kyoto Accord -- in contrast to the impression left by Canadian media during the climate change conference in Montreal last year, which was basically that the U.S. has actually been more successful in cutting emissions than Canada despite not getting on board with Kyoto. Hertsgaard pokes holes in that argument. Although he castigates the U.S. media for insisting on presenting "balanced" stories by giving equal credence to the arguments for and against the existence of global warming, he sits on that knife edge himself for parts of the article. Still, his conclusions are arresting. And Michael Shnayerson's piece about the rape of the Appalachian mountains, which he lays in the lap of one coal tycoon, is utterly depressing.

Like many, I'm sure, I've been confounded by the conflicting opinions of scientists, and probably hoodwinked by various media reports. Whom to believe? Steve Maich writing in Maclean's during the Montreal climate change conference insisted that Kyoto is not practicable, ignores toxic pollutants other than carbon dioxide and focuses too much on immediate emission cuts and not enough on long-term alternative-energy plans. But you get the feeling that Maich just really, really wants to find something to write that's contrary to the opinions of David Suzuki and his ilk. If Maich has to admit that global warming is real, he'll be damned if he'll concede anything further. (This is the new Maclean's, after all.)

Somehow Vanity Fair manages to seem well-researched and reasoned without insisting that the jury is still out. As an example of magazine editing, the issue is masterful. They hooked me. Still, most of the frogs-in-boiling-water don't read VF.