Are Americans Giving Up On The Environment?

Flickr/<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsimmonsonca/4189490534/">Gary Simmons</a> (<a href="http://www.creativecommons.org">Creative Commons</a>).

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Two new Gallup polls reveal Americans are becoming less concerned about the state of the environment.

A survey released yesterday shows just 34 percent of the public is worried a “great deal” about the environment, down from 40 percent the year before. Meanwhile, a poll published today reveals Americans are less troubled about pollution, global warming, deforestation, and animal and plant extinction than at any point in the past 20 years.

There are two ways to decipher these numbers. One is that the public is more content with environmental progress than before, so they have less to gripe about. Obama is certainly a more eco-friendly president than Bush, the climate bill is a buzzed-about legislative possibility, and the stimulus was a relative boon for the planet.

But the statistics may also indicate public indifference or even apathy. Thanks in large part to partisan bickering and scandals such as Snowpocalypse and ClimateGate, confusion over global warming has reached a fevered pitch. At the same time, the economic slump is swallowing the public’s attention. What we may be witnessing is an endemic shift in prioritization, which raises the question: What, if anything, can instill a renewed sense of purpose?

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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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