Climate R&D Gets Short Shrift at the Democratic Debate

Mayor Pete didn't say much about climate R&D, but at least he mentioned it.PBS

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Everyone is now talking about climate change. Everyone is in favor of emergency action. Everyone (?) is in favor of a carbon tax.

I guess this is good to hear, but it sounds an awful lot like what I’ve been hearing forever. We have to tell people that this is a big emergency! Yes we do, but so far that hasn’t really made much of a dent. We need to hold Congress accountable! Sure, but public opinion is the core thing here. Congress won’t do anything unless voters demand it, and there’s not much evidence that the public is excited about anything that would call for them to make even a small sacrifice. It’s an existential crisis! But . . . maybe not so existential that we should support expansion of nuclear power.

Naturally, I was listening for someone to mention R&D. No such luck. Aside from Andrew Yang, I think Pete Buttigieg tossed in a brief mention within a laundry list, and that was it. Sigh.

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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.

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.

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