Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Ixtoc spill still contaminates coastlines; is that northern Gulf’s fate?

By Ryan Dezember, Press-Register Sunday, September 12, 2010, 6:47 AM   As the northern Gulf Coast ponders the long-term effects of the oil spill, attention is increasingly turning to the southwest, where 30 years ago the Ixtoc 1 well spewed millions of gallons of crude onto shorelines in Texas and Mexico. Texas A&M University researcher Wes […]

Oil from the BP spill found at bottom of Gulf

University of Georgia researcher says samples are showing oil from the spill By MATT GUTMAN and KEVIN DOLAKSept. 12, 2010 Oil from the BP spill has not been completely cleared, but miles of it is sitting at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, according to a study currently under way. Professor Samantha Joye  of […]

Corals face catastrophic bleaching due to record high temperatures

By David BielloSeptember 12, 2010 In 2005, coral reefs throughout the Caribbean faced an epic heat wave—underwater. Sea surface temperatures stayed at record high levels for more than three months in some locations and as much as 60 percent of corals died as a result. Most bleached, expelling the symbiotic algae that feed them, turning […]

The catastrophic decline of the world’s freshwater turtles

By Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent, BBC News  10 September 2010 Freshwater turtles are in catastrophic decline, according to a new analysis by Conservation International (CI). The group says more than a third of the estimated 280 species around the world are now threatened with extinction. The unsustainable collection of turtles for food and to supply […]

China raises alarm over Yangtze environmental damage

Beijing (AFP) Aug 31, 2010 – China will spend billions of dollars treating sewage and planting forests to arrest massive environmental degradation along the Yangtze river and its Three Gorges reservoir, officials said Tuesday. “Generally speaking, the ecological state (of the river) is still far from what the Communist Party and people are demanding,” forestry […]

Graph of the Day: Dead Zones in Chesapeake Bay, 2005

Climate change is likely to expand and intensify “dead zones,” areas where bottom water is depleted of dissolved oxygen because of nitrogen pollution, threatening living things. More spring runoff and warmer coastal waters will increase the seasonal reduction in oxygen resulting from excess nitrogen from agriculture. Coastal dead zones in places such as the northern […]

Amphibians at risk from booming global wildlife trade, climate change, habitat loss, pollution, and disease

By Laurel Neme, special to www.mongabay.comSeptember 08, 2010 Alejandra Goyenechea, International Counsel at Defenders of Wildlife and Chair of the Species Survival Network’s (SSN) Amphibian Working Group, spoke with Laurel Neme on her ‘The WildLife’ radio show and podcast about the global amphibian trade. In her interview, Alejandra Goyenechea discusses the benefits of frogs and […]

Gulf oil spill threatens extinction of world’s smallest seahorse

The Gulf oil disaster has done still unknowable damage to marine wildlife, with everything from fish to seabirds under threat. But at least one species is threatened with extinction — the dwarf seahorse, a tiny animal less than two inches long which is unique to the Gulf Coast. It lives among the seagrass beds in […]

Arctic ice at low point compared to recent geologic history

By Pam Frost Gorder, (614) 292-94758 September 2010 COLUMBUS, Ohio — Less ice covers the Arctic today than at any time in recent geologic history. That’s the conclusion of an international group of researchers, who have compiled the first comprehensive history of Arctic ice. For decades, scientists have strived to collect sediment cores from the […]

Deepwater Horizon oil remains below surface, will come ashore in pulses, expert says

ScienceDaily (Sep. 8, 2010) — Gregory Stone, director of LSU’s WAVCIS Program and also of the Coastal Studies Institute in the university’s School of the Coast & Environment, disagrees with published estimates that more than 75 percent of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon incident has disappeared. Stone recently participated in a three-hour flyover of […]

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