January 30, 2012

Lying With Charts, Global Warming Edition

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In my email today, the Washington Times passes along some great news: “Global warming trend ended in 1997, new data shows.” The link is to a piece in the Daily Mail that, sure enough, tells us that our real worry isn’t warming, it’s the possibility of the Thames freezing over. And to prove that the world is no longer heating up, they include one of my all-time favorite graphs. I’ve recreated it using NASA data:

Look! No warming trend! But do you see the problem? I’ve given you a hint by embedding the 1997-2011 data within a larger chart, instead of just producing it on its own, as the Mail did. So that should make things pretty obvious. But in case you need a bigger hint, click the link for the full set of data, not cherry-picked to begin with the huge El Niño spike of 1998.

Hey look! The warming trend is back!

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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