Enviro Links: BP Helps Draft Public School Curriculum, Arizona GOP Recruits “Green” Drifters, and More

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Today in oil spill news:

A new NOAA report finds that while oxygen levels in the Gulf are down 20 percent since the Deepwater Horizon disaster, they’re still not low enough to create new “dead zones.”

The Times-Picayune outlines the errors that caused the Deepwater Horizon disaster, gleaned from the more than 100 hours of testimony to investigators. The report concludes that “five key human errors and a colossal mechanical failure combined to form a recipe for unprecedented disaster.”

The oil industry admits that they should be better prepared for an oil spill in a set of recommendations provided to the Department of Interior.

BP has been helping develop environmental curriculum for California public schools.

Thousands flocked to Louisiana’s annual Shrimp and Petroleum Festival last weekend, a tradition that might have seemed a bit odd this year given the havoc oil has brought to the shrimping industry this year. Here’s a photo to prove it’s real.

And in other environmental news:

The actual Green Party of Arizona is not pleased that Arizona Republican Party has reportedly recruited “drifters” to run for a number of public offices this November.

The auto industry doesn’t like the new grades for automobiles that the EPA announced last week.

A new report from Environment America details why more Snopocalypses may be on the horizon thanks to global warming.

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) argues that the Obama administration’s $50 billion infrastructure proposal should be paid for by increasing the gas tax, which has been the same since 1993.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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