--- title: Introducing MNN, the New 'Green CNN' description: For readers like me who were impressionable kids during the last great green boom, in the early 1990s, the original environmental guru isn't Al Gore... canonical: https://time.com/archive/6933086/introducing-mnn-the-new-green-cnn/ author: Bryan Walsh article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2009-01-08T05:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-23T04:06:24.848Z article:section: Health og:title: Introducing MNN, the New 'Green CNN' og:description: For readers like me who were impressionable kids during the last great green boom, in the early 1990s, the original environmental guru isn't Al Gore... og:url: https://time.com/archive/6933086/introducing-mnn-the-new-green-cnn/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc58e76e905a0b79d/698a4daccabb1df799e53434/360_mnn_0107.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 360 og:image:height: 203 og:image:alt: 360_mnn_0107.jpg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Introducing MNN, the New 'Green CNN' twitter:description: For readers like me who were impressionable kids during the last great green boom, in the early 1990s, the original environmental guru isn't Al Gore... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc58e76e905a0b79d/698a4daccabb1df799e53434/360_mnn_0107.jpg?branch=production&width=360&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Health](/section/health/) # Introducing MNN, the New 'Green CNN' > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Bryan Walsh](https://time.com/author/bryan-walsh/) Jan 8, 2009 5:00 AM UTC  Mother Nature Network Mother Nature Network by [Bryan Walsh](https://time.com/author/bryan-walsh/) Jan 8, 2009 5:00 AM UTC For readers like me who were impressionable kids during the last great green boom, in the early 1990s, the original environmental guru isn’t Al Gore but a certain blue-skinned, green-haired, red-briefs-wearing superhero. That would be Captain Planet, summoned by the combined powers of his Planeteers to battle the enemies of Earth like Looten Plunder and Sly Sludge. (The early ’90s were a simpler time.) The animated Captain Planet series aired for a few years before petering to an end in 1996 — just a little before the U.S. failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which is almost certainly a coincidence. But the captain is back, this time online as one of the top features offered by a new environmental website, the [Mother Nature Network (MNN)](https://www.mnn.com/). Launched by a group of green Atlantans, including Chuck Leavell, a part-time tree planter and full-time keyboardist for the Rolling Stones, MNN is the latest website to try to ride the environmental wave online. (See [grist.org](https://www.grist.org/), [treehugger.org](https://www.treehugger.org) and TIME’s own [Going Green](https://www.time.com/goinggreen).) But if the idea behind MNN isn’t new, the website’s sheer ambition is. Launched in the teeth of the recession and a media apocalypse that has not spared environment-themed properties — the paper edition of the eco-friendly magazine _Plenty_ folded on Jan. 5 — MNN aims to be nothing less than a one-stop shop, a “green CNN” for the online audience. “Our product is going to be better than anything out there,” says Joel Babbit, MNN’s president. “We’re not just another site.” ([See the 50 best websites of 2008.](https://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1809858%5F1809957,00.html)) Though the site has barely gotten off the ground — it officially launched on Jan. 6 — it’s already impressively close to its goal. Thanks in part to the countless media layoffs around the country, MNN has been able to assemble a surprisingly accomplished staff for such a new property, including Peter Dykstra, the former head of CNN’s science unit, and bloggers like the New York _Times’s_ Jim Motavalli, a transportation expert. That talent has enabled MNN to get a fast start on harder environmental news, even as it does the yeoman’s Web work of aggregating content from other sites. But the real point of MNN isn’t to provide the kind of complexity and depth you might get on a website like grist.org, where greener-than-thou commenters will dissect the minutiae of a carbon tax. Instead, it’s to offer simplicity. That’s on display in one of the site’s more innovative features, “[Translating Uncle Sam](https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/eia-the-rise-and-free-fall-of-gas-prices),” in which MNN’s bloggers take raw data from government websites — whose comprehensiveness is eclipsed only by their impenetrability — and put it into user-friendly terms. Given the way people twist data, knotting them like Atlanta traffic, in environmental debates — especially those about global warming — this is a genuinely valuable service. Notes Babbit: “We’ll have better graphs.” MNN is also trying to expand its coverage beyond the usual green-media hot spots of New York and Northern California by hiring college journalists, with the aim of getting at least one reporter in each of the 50 states. But the real soul of MNN is in its green-living features — leavened with the help of Leavell’s celebrity friends. If you want to get green tips from the likes of Jeff Goldblum or Jane Fonda, MNN is the place to go. Given that just about the only two subjects that remain viable in today’s blasted media landscape are celebrity and the environment, combining the two might just give MNN the ability to turn green into gold. [See TIME’s special report on the environment.](https://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/0,28757,1730759,00.html) [See the world’s most polluted places.](https://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1661031%5F1661028,00.html) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6933086/introducing-mnn-the-new-green-cnn/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6933086/introducing-mnn-the-new-green-cnn/"},"headline":"Introducing MNN, the New 'Green CNN'","datePublished":"2009-01-08T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-23T04:06:24.848Z","description":"For readers like me who were impressionable kids during the last great green boom, in the early 1990s, the original environmental guru isn't Al Gore...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6933086/introducing-mnn-the-new-green-cnn/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc58e76e905a0b79d/698a4daccabb1df799e53434/360_mnn_0107.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Bryan Walsh","url":"https://time.com/author/bryan-walsh/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc58e76e905a0b79d/698a4daccabb1df799e53434/360_mnn_0107.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"360_mnn_0107.jpg","caption":"Mother Nature Network","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6933086/introducing-mnn-the-new-green-cnn/","name":"Introducing MNN, the New 'Green CNN'"}}]}] ```