Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Aerial view of two large ships traveling on a drought-stricken Mississippi River. Photo: Philip Gould / Getty

The Mississippi River is losing its fight with the ocean – “This is not a one-off or once-in-100-years thing”

By Nancy Walecki 11 October 2023 (The Atlantic) – The mouth of the Mississippi River is the arena for a kind of wrestling match. In one corner of the ring is the salt water of the Gulf of Mexico, and in the other, the river’s fresh water. The two shove against each other, and usually, […]

Flood waters ripple through an orchard of dead and dying pistachio trees in Tulare Lake. Photo: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

Heat, drought, floods, bad air: Will California’s Central Valley survive climate change? “It’s almost like the forecast for the middle, late century – we’re seeing it right now”

By Hayley Smith 25 October 2023 (Los Angeles Times) – One March morning in the small Central Valley town of Woodlake, Joshua Diaz was getting out of bed when he noticed that his carpet was bubbling and that his tile floor had grown slick. He tried to open his front door but felt pressure and […]

Aerial view of the Turkana people, nomadic herders in Kenya, near a dried-up watering hole. They were suffering amid a five-year drought in March 2023. Photo: FRANCE 24

Video: Indigenous people and climate change – With Kenya’s Turkana people, when drought kills

By Achraf Abid and James André 20 October 2023 (FRANCE 24) – FRANCE 24 brings you the stories of the people who are on the frontlines of climate change. From Kenya to Panama, via Greenland and Australia, our reporters James André and Achraf Abid went to meet the Indigenous people who live in harmony with […]

U.S. federal government outlays for net interest (12-month rolling sum), 1985-2023. Data are current through August 2023. Data: LSEG Datastream. Graphic: Kripa Jayaram / Reuters

As global debt worries mount, is another crisis brewing? “You can take many, many countries today, and you will see that we are not far away from a public finances crisis”

By Yoruk Bahceli, Dhara Ranasinghe, and Maria Martinez 16 October 2023 LONDON (Reuters) – Record debts, high interest rates, the costs of climate change, health, and pension spending as populations age and fractious politics are stoking fears of a financial market crisis in big, developed economies. A surge in government borrowing costs has put high debt in […]

Aerial view of boats stranded in the mud of the parched Rio Negro amid a drought in the Amazonas state of Brazil on 29 September 2023. Photo: Michael Dantas / AFP

Drought drains Brazilian Amazon residents reliant on waterways – “It’s every man for himself”

By Orlando Junior 3 October 2023 (AFP) – Not far from the emblematic site where the black waters of the Rio Negro join the brown currents of the Solimoes, two chief tributaries of the Amazon, what once was a lake has given way to a vast stretch of cracked mud. Now, the only water remaining […]

The Norwegian Aker BioMarine’s Antarctic Sea trawls for krill in the Southern Ocean off the coast of the South Orkney Islands, north of the Antarctic Peninsula, on 10 March 2023. Photo: AP Photo / David Keyton

Factory fishing in Antarctica for krill targets the cornerstone of a fragile ecosystem – “What’s coming out of the side are the remnants of the ecosystem”

By Joshua Goodman and David Keyton 13 October 2023 (AP) – The Antarctic Endeavour glides across the water’s silky surface as dozens of fin whales spray rainbows from their blowholes into a fairy tale icescape of massive glaciers. But as a patrol of environmentalists approaches the Chilean super trawler in an inflatable boat, the cruder […]

Geographical pattern of the primary drivers of deteriorating status among amphibians. a,b, The primary drivers of deteriorating status among amphibians during 1980–2004 (482 species; a) and 2004–2022 (306 species; b). Cell colour was determined by the primary driver impacting the most species. Where two primary drivers equally contribute to a cell, an intermediate colour is shown. The stars indicate where the primary driver is undetermined or there are numerous primary drivers. The cell area is 7,775 km2. Graphic: Luedtke, et al., 2023 / Nature

Climate change emerges as major driver of amphibian declines, new research finds – “It’s a gut punch and an awakening”

By JoAnn Adkins 4 October 2023 (FIU) – Amphibians are in trouble and in desperate need of conservation action, according to a new global assessment of the world’s amphibian population. Salamanders are experiencing the greatest decline in numbers, but frogs, toads, newts, and salamanders throughout the Neotropics — extending from South Florida and Caribbean islands […]

A bridge and rubble from a previous house that was underwater at Canyon Lake in Texas reappeared in 2023 due to historically low water levels. Photo: JM Perez / CNN

In Texas, water levels are so low a rarely-seen underwater cave and century-old ruins have appeared – “I haven’t seen the water this low since I moved here. It’s actually kind of sad.”

By Amanda Jackson and Zoe Sottile30 September 2023 (CNN) – Water levels are so low at Canyon Lake in Texas that an underwater cave and remnants of communities that stood more than a century ago at the site are reappearing. The lake, located in Comal County just northeast of San Antonio, is a man-made lake spanning 8,200 acres with […]

Satellite view of burned area and wildfires in Greece, 19 August 2023 - 14 September 2023. More than 672 square miles had burned through September 2023. Photo: European Union / Copernicus Sentinel / EO Browser

Two months of fire and flood: Greece’s climate disasters in 2023, visualized – “An unprecedented weather event, a catastrophe of immense proportions”

By Mithil Aggarwal and Jiachuan Wu 8 October 2023 (NBC News) – Greece is at war with climate change. Wildfires and record rainfall devastated the country this summer, first scorching entire forests then flooding complete towns. Here’s a look at two months of disasters that will leave the country changed for years. The fires The blaze […]

This graph shows Antarctic sea ice extent as of 10 September 2023, along with daily ice extent data for four previous years and the record maximum year. 2023 is shown in blue, 2022 in green, 2021 in orange, 2020 in brown, 2019 in magenta, and 2014 in dashed brown. The 1981 to 2010 median is in dark gray. The gray areas around the median line show the interquartile and interdecile ranges of the data. Graphic: National Snow and Ice Data Center

Antarctic sea ice sets a record low maximum by wide margin – “Polar ice is one of the world’s biggest insurance policies against runaway climate change, and we can see in both the North and the South sea ice, we’ve got problems and alarm bells are ringing”

By Kasha Patel 25 September 2023 (The Washington Post) – Sea ice levels around Antarctica just registered a record low — and by a wide margin — as winter comes to a close, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). This significant milestone adds worry that Antarctic sea ice may be entering […]

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