All This Over $3?

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ackook/751140295/sizes/m/in/photostream/">Ack Ook</a>/Flickr


Is the US going to start a trade war with the European Union over its efforts to cut planet-warming emissions from air travel? The US government has been threatening as much ever since the EU’s plan to charge airlines for emissions was upheld in the European Court of Justice in December.

The fee has caused a flurry of outrage in Congress, and shortly before Christmas Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote a letter to the EU warning that unless the plan was abandoned, the US would be “compelled to take appropriate action.” On Tuesday, the EU responded to Clinton’s letter, declaring that it has no intention of dropping its plan because of the objections from the US, China, Russia, and other countries.

The Obama administration has been mulling retaliatory measures, which a senior administration official recently discussed with Reuters. Options include imposing new landing fees on European airlines, or some similar fee—which would probably make European airlines, and in turn European Union member countries, pretty unhappy.

But what often seems to go unmentioned is that the EU is actually only making international carriers pay for 15 percent of their emissions. They’re giving away 85 percent of the permits. And a bunch of US-based airlines—American Airlines, US Airways, Delta, and United—have already announced that they plan to pass the costs onto customers. All whopping $3 per ticket of it.

A ticket to Europe will run you at least a few hundred bucks. Probably more like $1,000, depending on where you’re going. Is that $3 really that big of a deal? It’s especially ridiculous when you think about all the things you’re charged for these days—checking luggage, carrying it on, printing your own ticket, having the airline print it for you, etc.—that don’t have some specific benefit like fighting climate change.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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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.

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.

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