May 2, 2013

Chart of the Century: The Keeling Curve Edges Up to 400 ppm

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For the past few months, the Keeling Curve, which measures atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at Mauna Loa Observatory, has been rising toward its annual late-May peak. Right now it’s at 399.5, and any day now it could pass 400 ppm for the first time in modern history. So take a nice long look. This could be the last time in your life that you get to see carbon dioxide levels below 400 ppm on planet Earth.

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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 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.

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