Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

In a changing climate, erratic rainfall poses growing threat to rural poor, new report says

  ScienceDaily (Sep. 5, 2010) — Against a backdrop of extreme weather wreaking havoc around the world, a new report warns that increasingly erratic rainfall related to climate change will pose a major threat to food security and economic growth, especially in Africa and Asia, requiring increased investment in diverse forms of water storage as […]

Thai villagers voice health fears over industrial pollution

Bangkok (AFP) Sept 5, 2010 – Noi Jaitang’s voice is laced with bitter helplessness as he faces the reality that his rural Thai village could once again be engulfed with fumes he blames for a litany of family illnesses. “I don’t understand why they please industry but not the people who were here first. If […]

Bee decline already having dramatic effect on pollination of plants

A decline in bees and global warming are having a damaging effect on the pollination of plants, new research claims. By Richard Alleyne, Science CorrespondentPublished: 5:30AM BST 06 Sep 2010 Researchers have found that pollination levels of some plants have dropped by up to 50 per cent in the last two decades. The “pollination deficit” […]

World Water Week to focus on pollution and worsening quality

Stockholm (AFP) Sept 5, 2010 – Increasing water pollution and dwindling water quality around the globe will be the main focus as around 2,500 experts begin gathering in Stockholm Sunday for the 20th edition of the World Water Week. “Driven by demographic change and economic growth, water is increasingly withdrawn, used, reused, treated, and disposed […]

Animation: Giant iceberg enters Nares Strait, 31 July – 1 September 2010

ESA’s Envisat satellite has been tracking the progression of the giant iceberg that calved from Greenland’s Petermann glacier on 4 August 2010. This animation, generated from 24 Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) images acquired from 31 July to 1 September, shows that the iceberg, the largest in the northern hemisphere, is now entering Nares […]

Record rain lashes south Australia

By Rachel BrownSeptember 5, 2010 Wild weather will again lash the southern states today after 24 hours of torrential rain and gales tore through Victoria and South Australia. Large areas of Victoria are under water after the state’s heaviest single day of rainfall in 15 years. Thousands of South Australians have been left without power […]

Image of the Day: South America Forest Fires Viewed from Orbit, 1 September 2010

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite detected 148,946 fires in this image on August 23, 2010. The fires are outlined in red. Most of the fires are concentrated in Bolivia, where the governments of two states had declared a state of emergency because of widespread fires three days earlier. Scores of […]

Migratory birds decline in UK due to low Africa rain

By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent05 Sep 2010 8:15AM BST Ornithologists have found that species including the turtle dove, willow warbler, tree pipit and redstart are struggling to find enough food in the weeks before they set off in the spring to fly to the UK. The scientists believe that years of poor rainfall in sub-Saharan […]

A world in collapse? Interview with Robert Jensen

Alex Doherty: You have written that: “To be fully alive today is to live with anguish, not for one’s own condition in the world but for the condition of the world, for a world that is in collapse.” Even amongst environmentalists it is rare to describe our situation in such apocalyptic terms. Why do you […]

Indian Ocean rising faster than others

By Rashme Sehgal September 5th, 2010 New Delhi — Newly detected rising sea levels in parts of the Indian Ocean have led Indian scientists to conclude that the Indian Ocean is rising faster than other oceans. Dr Satheesh C. Shenoi, director, Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, speaking at a workshop on “Coasts, Coastal […]

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