The Stones We Stand On

Newspapers have a simple business model: buy paper by the ton, sell it to advertisers for $30,000 a page, then get it on the front porch each day before breakfast.

It's worked pretty well for five centuries or so. Suddenly, though, we’re taking the paper out of newspapers. We still have the news. We still need journalists to report it. We just can’t figure out how to pay for them.

And so, after three decades as a newspaper reporter, I found myself looking for work last spring, just when the Natural Resources Defense Council was looking for communications help in Washington.

As a journalist, I knew the NRDC as the most effective environmental advocacy group in the country. As an insider, I've learned why that is.

We base our work on sound science, the rule of law and the public interest. Those are the pillars of our authority. When the NRDC speaks, we stand on those stones.

We've been at it for 40 years. Our voice has never been stronger, nor our message more timely, than now, as we endeavor to help pass clean energy and climate legislation that will put Americans back to work, reduce our reliance on foreign oil and create a healthier future for our children.

Every American, I believe, supports those goals. We're having a spirited national debate about how best to get there. The NRDC is part of the conversation.

Our strength is our foundation. Science, law and the public interest, it turns out, form a solid platform for talking about climate change, good stones to stand on before critics digging in on softer ground.

We have a right to our opinions in this country. As a career journalist, I'll always cherish that right. We don't get to make up our own facts.

That's why, at the NRDC, we look to the most authoritative sources we can find anywhere for the facts that inform our analysis and views. We listen at least as much to our critics as to our friends. We challenge ourselves from within. And when there's new information to rebut the positions we've staked out, we stand ready to review and to learn.

We've heard our critics on climate change. We've examined their data and views. And we'll never stop challenging ourselves from within.

That's why, when it comes to the challenge of climate change, you can believe us when we tell you the science is sound, the solutions work and we'll build a stronger economy and a more secure nation as we move toward the clean and sustainable energy future our country deserves.

Journalists are a bit like artists at heart; we do what we do because we are who we are and we can't imagine ourselves any other way. So it wasn't surprising when a former colleague asked the other day how I'm transitioning to the new job.

Well, I replied, I work with fiercely independent thinkers and intellectual entrepreneurs who are passionate about what they do. I spend most of my time interviewing experts who are the masters of their game, then writing up what I've learned in a way I hope will speak to Americans everywhere. And I work with people who get up every day believing, absolutely, in the mission.

No, this journalist insisted, I mean, how are you liking your new job?

Meet the new job. Not exactly the same as the old job, but similar enough that I still recognize myself when I sit down to the keyboard. Then again, maybe I just can't imagine any other way.