Reality Check From Bali

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This Washington Post article conveys in short and sweet style how serious the U.S.’s refusal in Bali to accept emissions caps is.

Europe: frustrated, vowing to boycott Bush’s distracter tactic, the “major economies” meetings he’s hosting on global warming. Brazil—home to the world’s largest intact forest—threatening not to comply with rules that only apply to developing countries.

Most disturbing of all, Americans support carbon emissions caps because they’re the only way of fending off catastrophic climate change.

As Connie Hedegaard, Denmark’s minister for climate and energy, put it, the targets don’t come from “figures taken at random,” she said. Rather, the 25 percent by 2020 “reports very specifically back to what the IPCC tells us.”

Compare the sanity of that remark—we’re doing what the best scientists tell us we have to—to the childish churlishness of this one, made by James L. Connaughton, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, explaining why the U.S. refuses to do the right thing and accept the caps: “We will lead. The U.S. will lead. But leadership also requires others to fall in line and follow.”

Despite Americans’ political will, our government is standing in the way of the best documented solution for the greatest problem the world has ever faced.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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