Torch your backyard

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Get your pyromanic kicks and help save the planet by torching your own backyard, like Richard Manning did.

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1/17 – Microsoft yields to permatemps Folks who live in the wide-open West amid vast fields and forests may have a moral duty to reintroduce fire into the landscape, says Manning in SIERRA magazine. “I’m trying to understand environmental restoration on the most intimate of scales, on land where I can’t blame loggers or federal bureaucrats for problems. The trees are too crowded for their own good — the result of fire suppression — and exotic weeds are pushing out the native wildflowers and grasses,” he says. He recounts how he is managing his own acreage with an eye toward healing what human management has wrought.

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A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. That’s risky, because a strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength—but a weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

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Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do. That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

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