Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Bangladesh’s once plentiful rivers run low on fish – At least 25 freshwater species now extinct

By Kamrul Hasan Khan (AFP)24 December 2010 CHAR PALIAMARY, Bangladesh — Bangladesh’s rivers have provided for fisherman Rafiqul Islam’s family for generations but a few years ago the 27-year-old noticed his nets were coming up empty. This year, Islam was forced to leave his small fishing community in northern Mymensingh district to find work, an […]

Hong Kong’s 2010 pollution level is worst on record

By John DuceDec 23, 2010 7:55 PM PT Hong Kong will record the worst year for roadside pollution since the city started collecting readings in 1999, according to calculations made by Bloomberg based on government data. Roadside smog reached “very high” or “severe” levels on the city’s air pollution index, triggering government health warnings, at […]

Caribou herd down 90 percent in Labrador

By OLIVER MOORE, Globe and Mail UpdateThursday, Dec. 23, 2010 9:48PM EST At its peak, the George River herd was a spectacle to rival Serengeti migrations. Huge numbers of caribou swept through Labrador each winter, providing native groups with a crucial source of food and cultural identity. Less than 20 years ago, the herd was […]

CNN’s Top Headlines of 2010: No mention of Pakistan flood

Haiti “the worst big story of the year” Sometimes the myopia startles even Desdemona. Top Headlines of 2010 Technorati Tags: oil spill,oil production,Gulf of Mexico,North America,Pakistan,global warming,climate change,flood

Economist Stefan Karlsson: ‘Would global warming be so bad?’

Free-market economist Stefan Karlsson asks the question on his blog and gets reposted by the usually level-headed Christian Science Monitor. Of course, for anybody even slightly acquainted with climate science, the answer is an obvious, ”Yes, and how.” Since Karlsson doesn’t allow comments on his blog, Desdemona is forced to reply here. Karlsson asks: What […]

Photo gallery: Satellite images of the ghost cities of China

By Chandni Rathod and Gus LubinDec. 14, 2010, 4:15 PM The hottest market in the hottest economy in the world is Chinese real estate. The big question is how vulnerable is this market to a crash. One red flag is the vast number of vacant homes spread through China, by some estimates up to 64 […]

Poaching, habitat loss taking toll on Bornean clouded leopard

By John PlattDec 21, 2010 04:50 PM When the Bornean clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi) was first identified as its own species in 2006, it was almost instantly added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species as “vulnerable” to extinction. Just four years later evidence out […]

West Africa hypoxic zone ‘roughly the size of the continental United States, and it’s growing’

December 22, 2010 — Billfish and tuna, important commercial and recreational fish species, may be more vulnerable to fishing pressure because of shrinking habitat according to a new study published by scientists from NOAA, The Billfish Foundation, and University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. An expanding zone of low oxygen, known […]

Land degradation among China’s food supply challenges, says UN expert – 37 percent of total land area degraded

23 December 2010 – While China has made great economic and social progress in recent years, land degradation and the widening income gap between rural and urban are posing challenges to ensuring the right to food for its population, says an independent United Nations human rights expert. “Within a few decades, China has been able […]

Scientist: Improve flood-plain maps – Conference focuses on mitigating sea-level rise

By Henry J. Evans Jr.Wed, Dec 22, 2010 Call it what you might – global warming or climate change – there are few scientists or people living near bodies of water who haven’t observed those waters moving closer to their property. More than 35 people attended the Dec. 9 workshop at the University of Delaware […]

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