Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Stark warning three months into Pakistan flood crisis

By Nasir Jaffry (AFP)29 October 2010 ISLAMABAD — International aid agency Oxfam warned Friday that three months into Pakistan’s unprecedented flood crisis funds were drying up, putting millions at risk with swathes of farmland still under water. The stark warning came as the United Nations refugee agency said thousands of people displaced by the floods […]

Tagged narwhals track warming near Greenland

ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2010) — In a research paper published online October 27 in the Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans, a publication of the American Geological Union (AGU), scientists reported the southern Baffin Bay off West Greenland has continued warming since wintertime ocean temperatures were last effectively measured there in the early 2000s. Temperatures in […]

In Colorado, freedom to burn – ‘It ain’t our fire’

By DINA FINE MARON of ClimateWireOctober 26, 2010 FOURMILE CANYON, Colo. — On a hot afternoon in late September, Allen Owen looked into the distance, hoping for rain. He crawled along unmarked dirt roads in his white Dodge Ram four-wheel drive truck, passing handwritten signs saying, “Thank you firefighters!” and “Be hopeful!” surveying the mounds […]

Oil Spill Commission finds Halliburton’s cement was unstable, failed multiple tests before Deepwater Horizon disaster

By David Hammer, The Times-Picayune Thursday, October 28, 2010, 12:30 PM National Oil Spill Commission investigators have found that the Halliburton cement used to seal the bottom of BP’s wild Gulf well in April was unstable and was used despite multiple failed tests in the weeks leading up to the massive well blowout. What’s more, […]

Cholera hits Pakistan 3 months after floods start

Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC)26 Oct 2010 Three months after floods began in Pakistan the DEC is extremely concerned that 99 cases of cholera from across the flood-affected areas of the country have now been publically confirmed for the first time. The World Health Organisation has announced today (26.10.10) that it was informed by the Pakistan […]

China’s soaring demand for luxury wood fuels destruction of Madagascar’s forests

By Staff WritersNagoya, Japan (UPI) Oct 26, 2010 China’s soaring demand for luxury wood furniture is fueling the destruction of Madagascar’s forests, says a new report launched Tuesday at the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Nagoya, Japan. The report from Global Witness and the Environmental Investigation Agency shows that about 98 percent of […]

Fifth of vertebrates face extinction: study

By David Fogarty; editing by Ron PopeskiWed Oct 27, 2010 7:00am EDT NAGOYA, Japan (Reuters) – About a fifth of the world’s vertebrates are threatened with extinction, a major review has found, highlighting the plight of nature that is the focus of global environment talks underway in Japan. The study by more than 170 scientists […]

UK insect decline caused by loss of wildflowers in countryside

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent27 Oct 2010 Butterflies and bees are declining because of the loss of wild flowers in the countryside, according to a major Government report. A team of researcher from the Centre for Hydrology and Ecology (CEH) monitored 500 plots of ‘semiwild’ land across the UK between 1990 and 2007 on the […]

Drought brings Amazon tributary to lowest level in a century

By Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro, www.guardian.co.ukTuesday 26 October 2010 04.25 BST One of the most important tributaries of the Amazon river has fallen to its lowest level in over a century, following a fierce drought that has isolated tens of thousands of rainforest inhabitants and raised concerns about the possible impact of climate […]

Starving Russian bears treat graveyards as ‘giant refrigerators’

A shortage of bears’ traditional food near the Arctic Circle has forced the animals to eat human corpses, say locals By Luke Harding in Moscow, www.guardian.co.ukTuesday 26 October 2010 15.32 BST From a distance it resembled a rather large man in a fur coat, leaning tenderly over the grave of a loved one. But when […]

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