October 23, 2009

Eco-News Roundup: Friday, October 23

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Environment, science, and health news from around the site:

Mining minister mystery: A senator anonymously blocked Obama’s appointment of Joseph Pizarchik, who has a history of favoring coal industry interests, as head of the Office of Surface Mining.

Chamber plays the blame game: The US Chamber of Commerce says its misleading membership claims were “hardly our fault.”

Where will all the permits go? The Kerry-Boxer climate bill has a big piece missing: It says almost nothing about how pollution permits will be allocated.

Obama’s radioactive regulator: Why did the White House pick a cheerleader for nuclear energy to oversee the industry?

What’s in it for us? Here’s what it’ll take to get the fence-sitters to approve the climate bill.

Hey Prius people! Ditch the Chamber! The liberal activist group MoveOn is pressuring Toyota—maker of the eco-status-symbol Prius—to leave the embattled US Chamber of Commerce.

Your friendly neighborhood climate-bill critics: The Cost of Energy Information Project (CEIP) is a new organization, but a lot of the same old critics of climate-change policy are behind it.

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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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