The Great Global Warming Plateau: A Remembrance

Here’s a trip down memory lane. Remember this?

George Will was all over this. It was proof that global warming was just a big hoax. The denier sites trumpeted it constantly. The folks who styled themselves “scientists” explained why this was no mere anomaly, but the way things were going to be forever thanks to . . . um, sunspot cycles and satellite errors and “tricks” from the climate shysters. What they didn’t tell you was that this was no big deal. It was just the latest cycle that was typical of global temperature increases over the past century:

And here’s the complete data series over the past hundred years:

Things are even worse here in North America:

On average, it’s now nearly 4°F hotter than it was when your grandmother was born. At the rate things are going, by 2060 it will be 7°F hotter.

A decade ago, the con artists were all trying to pretend that global warming had stopped forever. But now that we’re a decade close to planetary suicide, maybe it doesn’t seem so funny anymore. Then again, IBGYBG, amirite?

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists 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 hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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