California, Dreamin’


I have a piece over on the homepage today looking at the fight over California’s landmark climate law, which could be delayed if an insidious ballot measure passes next month. With climate legislation delayed indefinitely in Washington, California has become the battleground between environmental groups and fossil fuel interests.

California’s climate law is the most comprehensive piece of legislation to cut greenhouse-gas emissions in the US. It’s also the most important, as the state is often the leader on environmental initiatives. This is, of course, why Proposition 23, which would stop implementation of the law next year, has become a hot spot of action this November. As Wade Crowfoot, the West Coast political director of the Environmental Defense Fund, told me, “If you can drive a stake in the heart of climate policy making in California, it will have a massive political chilling effect elsewhere in the country.”

With that in mind, the folks over at Dirty Energy Money this week launched a site to track the money oil and gas interests are spending to kill the law. At the new site you can see exactly where the $8.3 million from oil and gas interests is coming from.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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