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Splashy, in-depth and explicitly concerned treatment of environmental subjects, particularly climate change, could be a resurgent trend in national magazines if recent editions of three quite different publications are an indication.

The multi-article packages in Time and Seed, an edgy new science bimonthly, were devoted to climate issues. Time's was labeled as a "special report" on global warming. Seed's was presented as a "special issue" under a more general heading, "State of the Planet 06," but the package's content was almost entirely climate-oriented.

Mother Jones, the left-leaning investigative magazine, offered a group of articles and other features examining a range of ocean issues, with climate change figuring prominently among them.

None of the magazines presented anything resembling a carefully calibrated exercise in balance or journalistic fence-straddling. In each case, the same point of view was evident – that the environmental issues being examined are major problems that are getting worse.

That viewpoint was no surprise in a magazine with Mother Jones' identity and heritage. Time's climate coverage struck some readers as a significant journalistic development, however – especially the lead article's proclamation that "in the past five years or so, the serious debate has quietly ended. Global warming, even most skeptics have concluded, is the real deal, and human activity has been causing it."

Such conclusion-drawing was too much for the conservative syndicated columnist George Will, who reacted with a blast at "the science-journalism complex" and at reporting that he said was "calculated to produce" public "anxiety." Will suggested that "big crusading journalism" may be a greater threat than "big oil or big coal."

Meanwhile, an applauding Worldwatch Institute, an environmentalist think tank in Washington, declared that Time's cover stories and a coinciding week of climate reports on ABC News were "a remarkable shift with far-reaching policy implications," because they signaled that "prominent U.S. news organizations are declaring the debate on climate change 'over.'"

(Neither Will nor Worldwatch mentioned CBS, but its "60 Minutes" program recently presented two major reports on climate change, likewise based on the premise that the scientific debate about human causation is essentially a settled question (see EW article, Mar. 2006).

Worldwatch asked in the headline of its news release about the Time and ABC reports, "Has the U.S. Media Reached a Tipping Point on Global Warming?"

Environmental journalists have an understandable interest in wondering if that could be true, because the approaches to environmental subjects that are taken by "prominent" media outlets can influence what editors at less-prominent outlets expect, assign or permit.

Here's a summary look at how, in their somewhat overlapping but mainly distinctive ways, Time, Mother Jones and Seed dealt with climate issues in their recent special issues (Mother Jones, in the context of a primary focus on ocean issues):

The covers of all three magazines provided attention-grabbing glimpses of the content within.

The photo on the front Time's April 3 issue portrayed a forlorn polar bear perched on a flimsy-looking scrap of ice, surrounded by open water. The headline cried: "Be Worried, Be Very Worried." All the words were in white, except "very," which was bright red.

Mother Jones' March-April issue had this cover headline: "Last Days of the Ocean: We're Pushing Our Seas To The Brink. Can They Be Saved?" A drawing showed tempestuous waves, dark clouds, and the Earth, which seemed to be spinning off its track into the stormy clouds.

The cover of Seed, whose logo proclaims that "Science Is Culture," featured a photo illustration of a souvenir snow globe with no snow, but New York skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty partly-submerged in water. "What Is It Going to Take?" the headline on the ornament's base asked.

Time preceded its copy with three photographs, each spread across two pages – a panoramic view of the plight of the cover's polar bear, drought-cracked land in Ethiopia, and a flooded-out villagers in India.

The following section comprised a lead story and four other sizable articles. The main story provided a sweeping overview, discussing recent weather events, polar research, climate "feedback loops," drought, plants and wildlife, politics and public attitudes.

Popular opinion seems to have reached its own "tipping point," the article said, as climate-change "naysayers – many of whom were on the payroll of energy companies – have become an increasingly marginalized breed." (An accompanying Time-ABC-Stanford University poll found that 85 percent of respondents believe "the Earth is getting warmer," but opinions were more narrowly divided on related questions.)

In addition, Time's package included articles on global warming's health impacts, assorted initiatives to address climate change (ranging from rock bands to Wal-Mart), profiles of individual "climate crusaders," an examination of the growing economies and greenhouse emissions of China and India, a complex graphic on climate feedback mechnisms, and thumbnail sketches of affected animal and plant species.

Just as far-reaching, though in a different way, was Mother Jones' voluminous treatment of a range of ocean problems.

Predictably, given its traditional commitment to long-form journalism, Mother Jones' group of articles provided more depth and nuance than Time's. The lead article, by documentary film maker and writer Julia Whitty, was a kaleidoscopic and intricately detailed overview of various threats to the oceans' environmental well-being.

Addressing the climate connections of these issues near the beginning of her article, Whitty carefully explained the heat-transport current system of the Atlantic, which, if it crosses a "critical tipping point," may "initiate rapid changes across the entire planet." The rest of her article dealt with a variety of issues, from controversies over different fishing methodologies to low-oxygen "dead zones."

Two other lengthy articles in the ocean package examined the conflict-of-interest debate surrounding the U.S. system of fisheries regulation and the controversial operations of Omega Protein, a company that annually converts millions of pounds of the ecologically important menhaden fish into various products, mainly chicken and pig feed.

Amid assorted graphics and photos were two shorter stories, which looked at threats to polar bears and sharks; a sidebar that listed nine alleged "Enemies of the Ocean," including such disparate people and entities as U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo of California, the Gorton's seafood company and the continent of Europe, and a concerned consumer's guide to seafood consumption.

Seed's "State of the Planet 06" issue was more narrowly focused on climate concerns, even if the issue title suggested broader coverage.

An introductory note by Seed founder and editor-in-chief Adam Bly said editors planning the issue "knew what we didn't want: a collection of articles that preached how important it is to care about the planet. We know you know that."

Instead, he said, the issue was aimed at "identifying the most pressing issues and the most compelling ideas at the intersection of science and environmental stewardship."

Seed's Washington correspondent, science journalist Chris Mooney, led off with a column in which he predicted that the "policy gridlock" over climate change in the U.S. will be broken by "real impacts of global warming in America's backyards," or concerns created by events such as Hurricane Katrina's destruction.

In a complementary, essay-like article, environmental writer Bill McKibben, whose book "The End of Nature" brought the climate issue to wide public attention two decades ago, speculated about what "constellation" of combined political forces, such as an emerging youth movement and religious environmentalists, might forge policy change.

The most detailed article in the Seed package was a lengthy account of work by a pair of researchers in Costa Rica, whose work "hints at the idea" that climate change may lead to tropical forests becoming net producers of carbon dioxide, rather than the net reducers (or "sinks") they have been thought to be.

Another long piece presented the transcript of a conversation between television producer and activist Laurie David and Stanford climatologist Stephen Schneider.

And a photo essay highlighted seven sites around the world that illustrate places facing "radical alteration due to climate change."

Time's stories are available in its online archives

Mother Jones' oceans articles are on its website, with related features.

Seed did not post its environmental package on its website, but offered a free copy of the special issue in a subscription offer.