Live: Kate Sheppard and Grist’s David Roberts Dissect Obama’s BP Speech

Fresh from his fourth—and first overnight—trip to the Gulf, President Barack Obama will deliver his first ever Oval Office address to the nation tonight at 8pm EDT. The administration says Obama will unveil his plan to make BP compensate Gulf businesses and residents for their mounting, spill-related losses. But what else will the president say? Will he be bold and demand a price on carbon? Or will he stick with punishing BP and leave the larger energy-related issues to Congress. The suspense is killing us …

Watch the speech at 8 pm EDT. A crew of us will be right there with you, chatting away: our own Kate Sheppard, Grist’s David Roberts, Sierra Club Executive Director Mike Brune, and Josh Freed, Director of the Clean Energy Program.

 

This chat was produced by Grist as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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