August 20, 2012

My Night Aboard an Aircraft Carrier

This certificate from USS Nimitz just made it on the short list of what to save from my house in the event of fire. It commemorates my landing aboard the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at sea off Hawaii last month—part of the Navy’s Great Green Fleet Demonstration whereby a carrier strike group and all its aircraft were fueled by alternatives: nuclear and biofuel blends. I’m writing more about my night aboard Nimitz and the US Navy’s rad new initiatives regarding energy and climate change for a forthcoming piece in Mother Jones.

Great Green Fleet demonstrates biofuels during RIMPAC 2012. Official US Navy Imagery via FlickrGreat Green Fleet demonstrates biofuels during RIMPAC 2012. In foreground, USNS Henry J Kaiser delivering biofuel blend to cruiser USS Princeton. Back left, USS Nimitz with 71 biofueled aircraft aboard. Back right, destroyer USS Chaffee: Official US Navy Imagery via Flickr

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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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