Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

U.N. helicopters fly baby Congo gorillas to safety

By Thomas Hubert; Editing by Tim Cocks, David Lewis and Mark TrevelyanKINSHASAWed Apr 28, 2010 3:09pm EDT (Reuters) – United Nations peacekeepers in Congo have used helicopters to airlift endangered baby gorillas to a sanctuary after they were rescued in a conflict zone where they faced being captured or eaten. The animals ferried to safety […]

Scientists link ocean acidification to prehistoric mass extinction

BY GWYNETH DICKEY New evidence gleaned by analyzing calcium embedded in Chinese limestone suggests that volcanoes, which spewed massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for a million years, caused the biggest mass extinction on Earth. In a paper published April 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of […]

Climate change increases heat waves, floods: EPA

Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Cynthia Osterman WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Deaths from heat waves, property damage from floods and rising seas from melting glaciers are a few of the things Americans can expect as a result of climate change, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a report released Tuesday. The report, called Climate […]

Gulf oil spill flowing five times faster than first estimated; new leak found

By ROBERT, Louisiana, April 28, 2010 (ENS) – There is five times as much oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon’s undersea wellhead than was originally thought, a Coast Guard official said late tonight. Rear Adm. Mary Landry, the federal on-scene coordinator for the oil rig disaster, told reporters that based […]

Australia drought improves, but farmers still desperate

By JESSICA MAHARApril 21, 2010 THE rain dances must have worked, with NSW suffering less drought than at any time in the past nine years – this month, just 7.3 per cent of the state is drought declared. The Primary Industries Minister, Steve Whan, said he hoped the figures marked a turning point for the […]

Global sea ice in ‘constant retreat’

LONDONWed Apr 28, 2010 1:38pm EDT (Reuters) – The world’s floating ice is in “constant retreat,” showing an instability which will increase global sea levels, according to a report published in Geophysical Research Letters on Wednesday. Floating ice had disappeared at a steady rate over the past 10 years, according to the first measurement of […]

Gulf spill may be ‘one of the most significant oil spills in US history’

By ALLEN JOHNSONApril 28, 2010 – 11:00AM The Gulf of Mexico oil rig disaster will develop into one of the worst spills in US history if the well is not sealed, the coast guard officer leading the response has warned. BP, which leases the Deepwater Horizon platform, has been operating four robotic submarines some 1500 […]

Industry experts call for water privatization and higher global water price

Private water suppliers poised to grow as demand set to surge By Juliette Jowit in Pariswww.guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 April 2010 14.47 BST Private companies are poised for a surge in demand to take over water supplies, despite widespread opposition to privatisation of what is seen as a life-giving public service. Global Water Intelligence analysts expect […]

Flooding in the dry season for Cameroon capital, as climate change takes hold

By Ntungwe Elias Ngalame 26 Apr 2010 13:26:00 GMT YAOUNDE, Cameroon (AlertNet) – When visitors arrived in Yaounde recently for the 8th annual meeting of the African Road Maintenance Funds Association, they got an odd greeting from a Cameroon host delegate. “Yaounde, a city flanked by seven hills, is an environmentally friendly place with a […]

Graph of the Day: Global Forest Cover Loss by Biome, 2000-2005

By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.comApril 26, 2010 Forests continue to decline worldwide, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). Employing satellite imagery researchers found that over a million square kilometers of forest were lost around the world between 2000 and 2005. This represents a 3.1 percent loss of […]

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