You might have missed it amongst the lights, mince pies and fuss over Turing, but on Christmas Eve, Ralph Keeling appealed for financial support as the Scripps CO2 and O2 Program he directs is threatened with closure.

That’s Ralph Keeling of Keeling Curve fame. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me share its story, because it’s interesting, important and woefully under-told. The Keeling Curve is the world’s longest unbroken record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. It’s called Keeling after Charles D. Keeling, who began the measurements in 1958, and is the father of Ralph who now runs the programme. And it is curved because it’s going up. When the project started, the measurements were 317 parts per million, we’re currently skirting around 400, having first hit that particular milestone back in May.

As Keeling put it on his Christmas letter, part of the problem is funding cutbacks, but it’s more than just that. This sort of long-term global measurement work can fall between the cracks of different agencies and structures for funding, especially as researchers apply for work on a project-by-project basis. As Keeling told Nature back in November, he knows online appeals for crowdfunding are largely a ‘fishing expedition' unlikely to raise anywhere near the required funds. He is also aware that the sort of long-term data collection they do is unattractive to philanthropists and, though they had at one point hoped commercial interests might pick up some of the slack, they are struggling to find customers.

The situation is similar, perhaps, to those currently faced by the UK census, although that has a more obvious link to cuts and its data offers different reasons to make politicians uncomfortable. The Experimental Lakes Area in Canada perhaps makes for a better comparison, although on a different scale, and again with a slightly different political context. The point is that long-term monitoring work maters. It's not always glamorous and requires commitment, but it helps us keep an eye on ourselves and what we're doing to our world; it helps us see ourselves.

There’s a lot of hype about crowdfunding science recently, with promises that it will help democratise research and lead to greater public engagement with science policy. I’m not sure I like it. Crowdfunding may well offer something new to small projects, especially those which go against the grain of what is scientifically fashionable or politically useful but might still inspire a fair number of people. But for long-term, large-scale projects which we already know are useful like the Keeling work, we should already be funding it, and already be working to find a multitude of ways the public can engage with them. We shouldn’t need a public appeal for money. We should be be able to make existing funding structures work more effectively.

For all that crowdfunding sounds cool and new, we already fund science from crowds of small payments. It is called the taxation system. Yes, taxation is ideologically different from how the term crowdfunding is usually applied. But that’s the point and this is where a key ethical question comes in. Crowdfunding is too easily applied to dismiss a role for the state, or at least as an expression of giving up on the role of the state to do such sort of work. As Mariana Mazzucato, amongst others, argues, we don't have to think like this.

You don’t have to be as rich or as committed to a particular project as the likes of Bill Gates or Jeremy Grantham to fund science via crowdfunding sites like Petridish, but you do need a bit of spare cash and some prior interest. And in that way they may appeal to a sense of public engagement, but it is a very limited public, and it’s a limited form of engagement. If you really want to democractise science, crowdfunding seems a bit too ephemeral.

If you really want to show support for the Keeling Curve and its ilk, think about offering them some money but above this find ways to put pressure on your elected officials too. Question why we can't fund science more effectively, and fund more public engagement with it too. (if you’ve never heard of the Keeling Curve before, ask your government why). There are other ways to stand up for your political agency than 'fishing expeditions' to crowdfunding

Alice Bell is a freelance researcher and writer. You can follow the Keeling Curve on Twitter @Keeling_curve.