May 24, 2010

How We Wrecked the Ocean

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In light of the minute-by-minute horror show underway in the Gulf of Mexico, it’s worth taking a look at the the long view of human impacts on the ocean. And no one talks the long view better than coral reef ecologist Jeremy Jackson of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In this TED talk he shares his passion, knowledge, concerns, and personal experience. Sadly, what’s going on now in the Gulf adds intolerable stressors to already overstressed ecosystems. As Jackson asks:
“So the question is: How are we all going to respond to this? And we can do all sorts of things to fix it, but in the final analysis, the thing we really need to fix is ourselves; it’s not about the fish; it’s not about the pollution; it’s not about the climate change. It’s about us, and our greed and our need for growth and our inability to imagine a world which is different from the selfish world we live in today.”
 I appreciate Jackson’s willingness to share his despair.
 

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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.

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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?

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