Nature is a Vengeful Creature

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Two for the irony department.

Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma is America’s foremost global warming denier (he called global warming “the greatest hoax every perpetrated on the American people” and compared global warming warnings to the deceptions of the Third Reich), and as the chairman of the Environment and Public Works committee is probably more responsible than anyone except President Bush for America’s inaction on the subject. Well, God or Nature or someone is pissed off, and it/they know exactly who to go after.

Oklahoma, it seems, is experiencing the worst drought conditions and wildfires in the United States. Nine and a half million acres have been burned by wild fires nationwide in 2006, a record. One could say proof of global warming is shining Inhofe in the face like sun glare off a prairie highway.

But the irony doesn’t end there. Australia, the only industrialized country other than the United States not to have ratified the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is experiencing its worst drought in 1,000 years. Predictably, losses in crop production have resulted in the slowest economic growth in recent years. More from the very good Climate Progress and “As the World Burns,” Mother Jones‘ 2005 package on global warming.

By the way, considering how things have gone for Oklahoma and Australia, it is only a matter of time until a lightening bolt hits Air Force One or a mudslide buries Michael Crichton’s house. I say this for your own safety, Mr. President: please do something. We don’t want you to end up like this man.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

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If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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