Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Eco-catastrophe in China: When a Billion Chinese Jump

By Johann HariMonday, Jan. 10, 2011, at 6:51 AM ET When Jonathan Watts was a child, he was warned: “If everyone in China jumps at exactly the same time, it will shake the earth off its axis and kill us all.” Three decades later, he stood in the gray sickly smog of Beijing, wheezing and […]

Graph of the Day: Population Trends for Northern Shrimp and Key Predators Off Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador, 1976-2000

Population trends for northern shrimp (Pandalus borealis) and key predators off eastern Newfoundland and Labrador. The biomass series for shrimp (■, left Yaxis) is represented by the CPUE index for NAFO Division 2HJ3K. The biomass series for fish predators (♦, right Y-axis), obtained from published documents in most cases, are given as tons x 103 […]

England’s uplands ‘get more frequent heavy rainfall’

By Mark Kinver Science and environment reporter, BBC News 13 January 2011 Last updated at 08:20 ET The frequency of heavy rainfall during the autumn and winter over the uplands of North England has “significantly” increased, a study has shown. A team of UK researchers said the shift coincided with an increase in westerly weather […]

Warming climate means red deer rutting season arrives early

Contact: Genevieve Maul, Genevieve.maul@admin.cam.ac.ukUniversity of Cambridge Wild red deer on the Isle of Rum, which were featured in the BBC TV series Autumnwatch, are rutting earlier in the year, a study shows. Scientists believe the annual rutting season on the Isle of Rum could be changing because of warming spring and summer temperatures. The study […]

Blaming foreigners for the vanishing fish

By Bagehot for The EconomistJan 13th 2011, 15:03 THERE is a lot of talk in the air, just now, about the madness of the European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), and how its strict quota system forces British trawlermen to throw vast quantities of fish back into the sea, dead. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a television chef […]

99 percent of pregnant women in US test positive for multiple chemicals including banned ones

ScienceDaily (Jan. 14, 2011) — The bodies of virtually all U.S. pregnant women carry multiple chemicals, including some banned since the 1970s and others used in common products such as non-stick cookware, processed foods and personal care products, according to a new study from UCSF. The study marks the first time that the number of […]

NOAA: 2010 tied for warmest year on record

Media Contact: John Leslie, 301-713-2087, ext. 17January 12, 2011 According to NOAA scientists, 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record, beginning in 1880. This was the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average. For the contiguous United States alone, the 2010 average annual temperature […]

Rhino poaching hit all-time high in 2010

By John Platt Jan 13, 2011 11:15 AM Rhinoceros poaching in South Africa hit an all-time high in 2010, with 333 animals slain for their valuable horns. That’s nearly triple the 122 rhinos killed in the country in 2009. Most of the poached rhinos were southern white rhinoceri (Ceratotherium simum simum). The most prolific type […]

Flooded Australia city ‘like war zone’

  By Ed Davies; additional reporting by Rob Taylor in CANBERRA and Amy Pyett in SYDNEY; editing by Rob Taylor and Mark BendeichThu Jan 13, 2011 6:49pm EST BRISBANE, Australia (Reuters) – Australia’s third-largest city began cleaning up stinking mud and debris in flood-hit areas on Friday, but whole suburbs remained submerged, smaller towns braced […]

Australia floods a glimpse of warmer future

STOCKHOLM, 13 January 2011 (AP) — Though you can’t make a direct link between Australia’s killer floods and climate change, they do hold a warning for the future: Scientists predict such extreme weather events will increase both in intensity and frequency as the planet warms. Raging floodwaters have swamped thousands of homes and businesses in […]

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