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Horvath and Toffel’s comparison of the environmental impacts of the paper versus the electronic editions of the New York Times is a bit misleading. A personal digital assistant isn’t good for advertising or newspaper browsing. In other words, the PDA users aren’t getting a comparable product. Still, the day is probably not too far off when digital displays will be sufficiently large, bright, light, flexible, and portable to handle newspaper-size pages with the ease and convenience of paper. Then, there will be powerful environmental and economic reasons for the shift to electronic news delivery.

Paul Danish
Boulder, Colo.

It would have been interesting to see figures on using a laptop computer rather than a PDA, since a laptop is a lot closer to satisfactory for the purpose.

James Thomas
Sandy Spring, Md.

I note that no mention is made of the trees cut down to make the paper, or of the amount of carbon dioxide those trees would remove from the atmosphere if left standing. Yet I agree with Brad Allenby’s statement that not many people will curl up with their PDAs on Sunday mornings.

Bill White
Homestead, Fla.