Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Desdemona's 6-Step Cycle of Doom

This occurred to Desdemona in the shower:  1. Environmentalists propose protections.2. Industry dominates the debate and compromises government.3. Inevitable catastrophe occurs.4. Environmentalists are blamed.5. Industry shifts all costs of remediation to government.6. Repeat Step 1. Technorati Tags: doom,corruption,oil production,oil spill,pollution

In the midst of marine collapse, will we save our last ocean?

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.com July 05, 2010 An interview with David Ainley. Imagine an ocean untouched by oil spills: a sea free of pollution, invasive species, dead zones, and over-exploitation; waters where marine animals exist in natural abundance and play ecological roles undimmed by mankind. Such a place may sound impossible in today’s largely depleted […]

Gulf oil disaster spells calamity for Canadian migratory birds

  By Bradley Bouzane, Canwest News Service July 5, 2010 OTTAWA — Tens of thousands of Canadian migratory birds are threatened by the environmental crisis caused by a spreading slick of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, says a Canadian bird expert. While news reports continue to show images of oil-soaked birds around the Southern […]

Overfishing and crabs may be killing Cape Cod’s marshes

By Carolyn Y. JohnsonBoston Globe Staff / July 6, 2010 HARWICH — For the past seven years, scientists have been alarmed by the mysterious death of marsh grasses on Cape Cod, which is transforming expanses of lush green wetlands into lumpy mudflats with the appearance of Swiss cheese. Work over the past few years has […]

Recovery effort falls vastly short of BP’s promises

By Kimberly KindyWashington Post Staff WriterTuesday, July 6, 2010 In the 77 days since oil from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon began to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has skimmed or burned about 60 percent of the amount it promised regulators it could remove in a single day. The disparity between what BP promised […]

Image of the Day: Oil reaches Lake Pontchartrain

By Matthew Hinton, The Times-PicayunePosted: Monday, July 05, 2010, 8:06 PM A tar ball from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill washed ashore near the Treasure Island subdivision in Lake Pontchartrain as people fish near the Rigolets in Slidell, Monday July 5, 2010. MATTHEW HINTON / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE Oil has reached Lake Pontchartrain Technorati Tags: oil […]

Video: Sea Shepherd overflight of the Gulf oil spill — ‘Booms randomly placed…all but completely useless’

Sea Shepherd CEO, Steve Roest, flies at an undisclosed altitude to examine the situation in the Gulf. Watch as he narrates his account. Sea Shepherd Flies Over the gulf ***Exclusive footage*** Technorati Tags: oil spill,oil production,pollution,Gulf of Mexico,North America,wetland,habitat loss,ecosystem disruption

Sand berms a dubious solution to Gulf oil spill

By Len Bahr, Contributing Op-Ed columnist, www.LaCoastPost.com Published: Monday, July 05, 2010, 6:00 PM The coast of Louisiana occupies North America’s largest delta, which has been rapidly shrinking and sinking for a century. River channelization, flood levees, upriver dams and coastal oil and gas production continue to take their toll. But a decade from now, […]

NSIDC: June Arctic sea ice saw lowest extent and fastest rate of decline in the satellite record

This year will almost certainly set the record for lowest Arctic ice volume ever recorded (see “When things were rotten“).  But whether it will set the less important — but more visible — record for sea ice extent is less certain.  You can see how close 2010 is to 2007 now. On the one hand, […]

Romania issues flooding red alert on record-high Danube

Bucharest (AFP) July 5, 2010 Romanian authorities on Monday issued a flooding red alert for several towns along the Danube, which has risen to a record level, threatening to cause further damage in the hard-hit country. “This week we will be facing dangerous meteorological and hydrological events,” Prime Minister Emil Boc said after an emergency […]

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