Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

The Twelve Doomiest Stories of 2010

Inspired by the ApocaDocs 2010 Year In Review, Desdemona arbitrarily picked twelve of the most profoundly doom-laden stories of 2010. 2013 doomiest graphs, images, and stories 2012 doomiest graphs, images, and stories 2011 doomiest graphs, images, and stories 2010 doomiest graphs, images, and stories — January – Ice-capped roof of world turns to desert Scientists […]

Fertile Crescent turning barren

By Katie Horner12.7.2010 at 2:57pm This past October, the Levant Desalination Association and NOSSTIA, an organization of expat Syrian scientists, arranged a conference in the capital city of Damascus to discuss Syria’s water crisis. Hydrology experts and research scientists at the conference reported that between 2002 and 2008, the national water supply fell from 1,200 […]

The ApocaDocs 2010 Year In Review (With Punchlines)

The top 100 stories from the 1629 news items recorded by the ApocaDocs in 2010. [A feature that Desdemona is sorely tempted to emulate.] Mon, Jan 11, 2010from BBC: World’s biodiversity ‘crisis’ needs action, says UNEight years ago, governments pledged to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, but the pledge will not be […]

Grassland butterflies in steep decline across Europe

Drop in 17 species’ populations indicates a catastrophic loss of flower-rich meadows in many European countries Once there were swarms of butterflies in our skies By Patrick Barkham, www.guardian.co.uk Thursday 9 December 2010 16.57 GMT Butterflies that flourish on grassland across Europe are in steep decline, indicating a catastrophic loss of flower-rich meadows in many […]

Climate change increases risks of toxic pollutants

By Alison Brown, edie newsroom10 December 2010 A UN study has found that climate change increases exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and heightens their toxic effects on humans and the environment. The study was previewed at the Climate Change Conference in Cancun this week. POPs are persistent and toxic and can affect generations of […]

Floodwaters still washing away lives in Pakistan

By MARY FITZGERALD Foreign Correspondent for The Irish TimesSaturday, December 11, 2010 Dadu, southern Pakistan — The world has moved on from the disaster, but in villages and camps the horror is still unfolding THE IRONY of being surrounded by water but not having enough to drink is not lost on Longkhan Solangi, the wiry […]

Peak Humanitarian Aid

Peak Humanitarian Aid: The period during which accelerating climate crises overwhelm the capacity of industrial civilization to handle them. Has this peak arrived, along with the others? The July 2010 flood catastrophe in Pakistan suggests that it has. The United Nations reports that the scale of the flood damage is larger than the combined damage […]

Graph of the Day: Summer Temperature Anomalies in Moscow, 1950-2010

By Heidi Cullen and Claudia TebaldiOctober 27th, 2010 The summer of 2010 brought intensely hot weather to large portions of the northeastern U.S., central Europe, and Russia. Russia was especially hard hit as a heat wave — with daily high temperatures hitting 100°F — contributing to the deaths of as many as 15,000 people in […]

5 awards for the world’s most heinous climate villains

By Mike Roddy and Ian Murphy 11 December 2010 (AlterNet) – This was the hottest decade on record and 2010 has been the hottest year on record. Extreme weather and starvation are increasing on every continent, as beetles devour our forests and jellyfish begin to rule the sea. MIT and the Met Office Hadley Centre […]

Australia states count cost of record floods

By Saffron Howden, with AAPDecember 11, 2010 Across the east, riverside communities have spent the week battling to protect their livelihoods. THE SWEEP of heavy grey across south-eastern Australia this week flooded hundreds of towns across four states, prompted the evacuation of thousands of homes and caused untold damage to the nation’s food bowl. From […]

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