February 3, 2010

At the Intersection of Climate Science and Voluptuous Breasts …

Photo from World Economic Forum, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldeconomicforum/2296434553/">via Flickr</a>.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has a scintillating new piece of writing. No, I’m not talking about the latest climate assessment report. In January Pachauri released his first novel, Return to Almora, which details the life and sexual conquests of Sanjay Nath, an academic in his 60s who frets over how politicians have “endangered the fragile ecosystem.”

The Telegraph has a copy and printed excerpts that might be too racy to repeat here on Blue Marble. Let’s just say it includes phrases like “caressing her voluptuous breasts” and “the excitement got the better of him, before he could even get started.”

It’s no Political Economy of Global Energy or Dynamics of Electrical Energy Supply and Demand: An Economic Analysis of course. While his climate and energy work helped win him a Nobel Peace Prize, the Telegraph posits that this work is “unlikely to win awards other than the Bad Sex in Fiction prize.”

Even without reading the whole book, I’d venture to say that Pachauri maybe should have spent more time analyzing glacial data and less time describing how Sanjay fondles heaving and/or voluptuous breasts.

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.

payment methods

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.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate