DoNotMail.gov

The national Do Not Call registry is five years old. Is it time for a national Do Not Junk Mail list?

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When you add up the true costs of junk mail —paper, printing, delivery, and disposal (44 percent winds up in landfills unopened)—you get 51.5 metric tons of greenhouse gases each year, the equivalent of 11 coal-fired plants or 9.4 million cars. But while there’s been a national Do Not Call registry since 2003, Congress has yet to do the same for paper solicitations. The USPS, in concert with the Direct Marketing Association, has successfully stalled efforts in at least 18 states to create Do Not Mail registries; Postmaster General John Potter has argued that “nothing is more targetable than the mail…And you don’t have to worry about filters.” The environmental group ForestEthics has launched an online petition (at DoNotMail.org) to push Congress to heed the majority of Americans (nearly 90 percent, according to a 2007 Zogby poll) who favor a registry; more than 64,000 have signed so far. For now, the junk-mail averse can remove their addresses from some lists via sites like GreenDimes.com—and by contacting individual credit card companies, magazines, and other businesses.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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