Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Graph of the Day: Nitrogen in US Groundwater, 1900-2003

The NAWQA trends assessment for nutrients in streams reflects periodic measurements of concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus from 1993 to 2003 (yellow vertical shaded area). This was a period of relatively small changes in nitrogen fertilizer use, which followed a more than 10-fold increase in fertilizer use between about 1950 and the early 1980s. There […]

Uganda forest being stripped for fuel wood

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com September 27, 2010 A new study in the open access journal of Tropical Conservation Science finds that the Kasagala forest reserve in central Uganda is losing important tree species and suffering from low diversity of species. Researchers believe that forest degradation for charcoal and firewood has put heavy pressure on this […]

Traveler caught with 200 pounds of elephant ivory in four suitcases

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com September 27, 2010 Customs officials found 16 pieces of cut ivory on searching a 62-year-old Malaysian man at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Thailand in August. Recently released information shows that the traveler was carrying nearly 200 pounds (90 kilograms) of ivory in four suitcases after arriving from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. “The […]

Cause of dead zone in Gulf: Tile drainage directly related to nitrate loss

ScienceDaily (Sep. 27, 2010) — Tile drainage in the Mississippi Basin is one of the great advances of the 19th and 20th centuries, allowing highly productive agriculture in what was once land too wet to farm. In fact, installation of new tile systems continues every year, because it leads to increased crop yields. But a […]

Colder weather and disease threaten Pakistanis displaced by floods

IRIN27 September 2010 QUETTA – Inside their tent at a camp on the outskirts of Quetta, capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, Meraj Sindhu helps his wife wrap their six-month-old son and two-year-old daughter in thin cloths widely used in Sindh Province as head scarves or turbans. Sindhu’s wife, Sassui Bibi, tells IRIN: “The […]

Ladakh reconstruction remains sluggish as winter approaches

By Amulya NagarajSeptember 22, 2010 8:14 AM EDT 2010 has been a year for extremes. Pakistan saw one of the worst floods in its history that affected over 21 million people, while Central Europe and the Baltics witnessed severe flash floods early in August that killed at least 15. And the small Indian town of […]

Australia faces worst plague of locusts since records began

Ideal breeding conditions for grasshoppers are expected to cost farmers billions  By Paul RodgersSunday, 26 September 2010 Australia’s Darling river is running with water again after a drought in the middle of the decade reduced it to a trickle. But the rains feeding the continent’s fourth-longest river are not the undiluted good news you might […]

Ethiopians want more from sacred Nile waters

By Staff WritersGish Abay, Ethiopia (AFP) Sept 26, 2010 Here in the shadow of Mount Gish, the spring water that forms the Blue Nile is believed to have healing powers, but Ethiopians say that is the only benefit they get from the mighty river. “These waters are sacred, they perform miracles for the sick,” Berhanu […]

Financial crisis pummels wildlife and people in the Congo rainforest

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com September 27, 2010 Spreading over three central African nations—Cameroon, Central African Republic, and Republic of Congo—the Sangha tri-national landscape is home to a variety of actors: over 150,000 Bantu people and nearly 20,000 pygmies; endangered species including forest elephants and gorillas; and, not least, the Congo rainforest ecosystem itself, which here […]

Video: Baby fish show up in big numbers despite Gulf of Mexico oil spill

Baby fish show up in big numbers despite spill By Ben Raines, Press-Register Sunday, September 26, 2010, 5:00 AM Baby snapper are everywhere. So are baby trout, grouper and grunt. Early results from an annual count of juvenile fish in grass beds scattered around the northern Gulf of Mexico suggest that the larvae of some […]

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