A step in the right direction?

James Kanter, a writer for the New York Times, published an interesting article today in the Green Inc. section of nytimes.com. The piece addresses hotel-giant Marriot's decision to stop automatically delivering a newspaper to each guest every morning. Instead, one must request that a newspaper be delivered upon check-in. According to Marriot, each paper represents a half-pound of carbon-dioxide emissions and this plan should cut down newspaper distribution by around fifty thousand papers. I'll be honest, that's a lot of carbon dioxide emissions and I am glad to see large companies addressing environmental issues. However, I find two problems with this plan, one being that I am quite fonding of reading a newspaper in the morning with a cup of copy. I love to go to a local coffee shop to get a cup of joe and read a few newspapers. I wish I had the money to afford having the Times delivered to my house, but being a poor college student means I live on a budget. I guess my concern is will this be a significant step toward the complete demise of the newspaper industry? It is already an industry in peril, and more events like this could spell disaster. Second, does Marriot really care about the environment or is this just a measure to cut costs in this tough economy? Either way I'm glad to see that the hotel company is attempting to adopt more sustainable business practices, but I will be sad when one day its no longer possible to leave a coffee shop with black fingers from covering a newspaper from front to back.