How Green Was My Rally?

From the January/February 2008 issue.

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


The average American is responsible for 10 to 23 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. A presidential front-runner’s campaign can generate that much in a day. Probably mindful of criticism of Al Gore’s energy-hungry mansion and jet-setting ways, the leading Democrats have been striving to reduce their environmental footprints. For Republicans, going green is not such a big priority.

Clinton Between July and September, her campaign emitted 969 tons of CO2 and bought $11,600 in carbon offsets from Native Energy, which invests in renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and biomass.

Edwards In the first half of 2007, his campaign emitted 1,836 tons of CO2 and bought $22,000 in offsets from Native Energy. Sometimes rides in a hybrid Ford Escape and has never used an RV.

Obama Logs 16,380 miles each month on charter flights. Spent $892,000 between July and September flying on Air Charter Team, which includes offsets in its price. Back home, he sometimes drives a partly ethanol-fueled GMC Yukon.

Kucinich Flies commercial and rides public transit when possible. His campaign wants to roll out energy-efficient, vegetable-oil-cooled computers housed in Plexiglas tanks. No, really.

Dodd Emits 61 tons of CO2 per month, but, to be safe, buys 88 tons’ worth of offsets from carbonfund.org, which invests in renewables and forests. Uses two hybrid Ford Escapes instead of an RV.

McCain Rides the “No Surrender” bus. The nearly broke candidate flies commercial when possible. The campaign asked its landlord in Arlington, Virginia, to shut off the AC when its HQ is empty.

Romney His campaign notes that it recycles and uses mugs instead of paper cups. Woohoo!

Giuliani Campaign rep: “I used to work for Schwarzenegger and was asked this question all the time. No one has asked me this question since I started working for Giuliani.”

Paul Did not return our calls. Does spam have a carbon footprint?

Thompson Mother Jones: We are researching the candidates’ environmental impact and what they are doing to minimize their footprints.
Campaign rep: [Silence.]
MJ: For instance, some candidates are buying carbon offsets.
CR: Are those Republican campaigns that are buying offsets?
MJ: No.
CR: [Silence.] I’m afraid I’m not going to have much for you. Let me look into it.

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 can’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.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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 won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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.

payment methods

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 can’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.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

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 won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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.

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