Using Redactor WYSIWYG with Ember

I'm using Redactor from http://ift.tt/Wa6JqJ with Ember. I created a Ember component:

App.RedactorEditorComponent = Ember.Component.extend({

  /* --- Public API --- */
  redactorText: null,
  color: null,

  /* --- Internal --- */
  tagName: 'div',

  init: function() {
    this._super();
    this.on("focusOut", this, this._elementValueDidChange);
    this.on("change", this, this._elementValueDidChange);
    this.on("paste", this, this._elementValueDidChange);
    this.on("cut", this, this._elementValueDidChange);
    this.on("input", this, this._elementValueDidChange);
  },

  _updateElementValue: function() {
    var $el, comment;
    comment = this.get('redactorText');
    $el = this.$().context;
    if ($el && comment !== $el.innerHTML) {
      return $el.innerHTML = comment;
    }
  },

  _elementValueDidChange: function() {
    var $el;
    $el = this.$().context;
    var comment = Ember.set(this, "value", $el.innerHTML);
    this.sendAction('saveRedactorText', comment);
    return comment;
  },

  didInsertElement: function() {
    this.$().redactor({
      plugins: ['counter']
    });
    this._updateElementValue();
  },

});

I create a plugin. The pluging code is strait from Redactor docs (http://ift.tt/1yOD0Gy). As per instructions, I placed the code into a counter.js file:

    if (!RedactorPlugins) var RedactorPlugins = {};

    (function($)
    {
        RedactorPlugins.counter = function()
        {
            return {
                init: function()
                {
                    if (!this.opts.counterCallback) return;

                    this.$editor.on('keyup.redactor-limiter', $.proxy(function(e)
                    {
                        var words = 0, characters = 0, spaces = 0;

                        var html = this.code.get();

                        var text = html.replace(/<\/(.*?)>/gi, ' ');
                        text = text.replace(/<(.*?)>/gi, '');
                        text = text.replace(/\t/gi, '');
                        text = text.replace(/\n/gi, '');
                        text = text.replace(/\r/gi, '');
                        text = $.trim(text);

                        if (text !== '')
                        {
                            var arrWords = text.split(/\s+/);
                            var arrSpaces = text.match(/\s/g);

                            if (arrWords) words = arrWords.length;
                            if (arrSpaces) spaces = arrSpaces.length;

                            characters = text.length;

                        }

                        this.core.setCallback('counter', { words: words, characters: characters, spaces: spaces });


                    }, this));
                }
            };
        };
    })(jQuery);

Questions: The plugin work but I understand that this plugin create a global variable. How can I make this code more compliant with Ember methodology? I did try to put the plugin code into the Ember redactor-editor component but I could not manage to make the plugin load on line plugins: ['counter'].