October 20, 2015

Here’s Barack Obama’s Newest Plan to Fight Climate Change

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_on_social_media#/media/File:Obama_Tweeting.jpg">Pete Souza</a>/Wikimedia Commons


The White House launched a new Twitter handle devoted to climate change Tuesday afternoon. The stream, called @FactsOnClimate, claims to provide “the facts on how is combating climate change in the U.S. and mobilizing the world to .”

The first three tweets highlight the most important pieces of President Barack Obama’s climate legacy: His signature plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and his stated commitment to reaching an international agreement on climate action in Paris this winter.

As Obama has made climate action a priority during his second term, his administration has doubled down on slick digital content to get the word out. There’s a nice basic website, an immersive interactive portal to explore the science, Facebook videos, essays on Medium, and now this.

The Paris talks, where the US delegation is expected to support a commitment to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions 26 to 28 percent by 2025 (compared to 2005 levels), are coming up in just over a month. Heads of state from around the globe are expected to drop in for the first day of the talks; on Monday, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest told reporters they “could certainly count [Obama] among the leaders who’s considering traveling to Paris.”

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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