July 15, 2007

Paris Provides Bikes To Fight Traffic, CO2

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The Paris city council is launching a free bike scheme to encourage people to give up the motor in favor of pedal power. The BBC reports this morning that the local authority in Paris is depositing 20,000 heavy-duty bicycles, called Velib, in 750 or so special racks around the city and anyone who wants one simply swipes his or her public transport card and pedals off wherever they want to go. The bike can be returned to any Velib stand. Subscriptions range from one day (one euro, $1.38) to a whole year (29 euros, $40). The first half hour of pedalling time is free but if you fail to return the bike after 30 minutes you get charged an extra euro and the penalties go up over time. The scheme has worked well in the French city of Lyon. But out of 2 million Parisians, only 150,000 own bikes. (Other Europeans don’t need encouragement.) Tourists will love them and every city should have them. After all, why not use that fastest-growing and INFINITE fuel source: fat. JULIA WHITTY

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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