Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Graph of the Day: Size of Hypoxic Zone in the Gulf of Mexico, 1977-2007

The relationship between the size of the hypoxic zone in July (km2) and the May nitrate+nitrite N loading (kg N) to the Gulf of Mexico each year. A linear regression of the data is shown. The individual data points are in four chronologically-sequenced groups separated from each other when the data fall below the slope, […]

Unemployment rate increases in 27 U.S. states in February

By CalculatedRisk on 3/26/2010 10:00:00 AM From the BLS: Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Summary Twenty-seven states recorded over-the-month unemployment rate increases, 7 states and the District of Columbia registered rate decreases, and 16 states had no rate change, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the year, jobless rates increased in […]

Rare animals are being ‘eaten to extinction’

By Louise Gray, Environment CorrespondentPublished: 7:00AM GMT 23 Mar 2010 Research in the Congo Basin in Africa found more than three million tonnes of ‘bush meat’ is being extracted from the area every year, the equivalent of butchering 740,000 bull elephants. Most of the animals are small antelopes like blue duiker or rodents like the […]

Britain air pollution shortens lives by up to nine years

  EVEN breathing can be dangerous these days. Air pollution is knocking up to nine years off the lives of people who live in pollution hotspots or have a respiratory illness. So says a report by the UK House of Commons’ Environmental Audit Committee. Tiny particles of sulphate, carbon and dust are the most damaging […]

Doom never tasted so sweet

The divine Seba Blanchard helps to promote Desdemona, after a smoking-hot performance at Seattle Center with her troupe, WildCard BellyDance. Technorati Tags: doom

Muslims pray for rain in drought-hit Guyana

Reporting by Neil Marks; Editing by John O’CallaghanGEORGETOWNSat Mar 27, 2010 2:56pm EDT (Reuters) – Muslims across Guyana prayed for rain on Saturday to end a drought that has battered the tiny South American nation’s rice and sugar exports and caused food shortages in indigenous communities.   The government of the former British colony of about […]

Polynesia coral reefs wiped out by cyclone Oli

ScienceDaily (Mar. 27, 2010) — On 3-4 February 2010, tropical cyclone Oli hit western French Polynesia. From 7 February 2010, the Coral Observation Department at CNRS’s National Institute of Earth Sciences and Astronomy (INSU), based at the Centre de recherches insulaires et observatoire de l’environnement (CRIOBE, CNRS/EPHE) in Moorea, rapidly undertook an inventory of the […]

Protesters rally against Lake Baikal's mill operations

Reporting by Denis Pinchuk; Writing in Moscow by Lidia KellyST. PETERSBURG, RussiaSat Mar 27, 2010 10:22am EDT Around 200 people gathered in St. Petersburg, thousands of kilometers away from the lake, demanding to revoke the government’s January decision to restart Baikal Paper Mill. Another 500 rallied closer to Baikal, which holds a fifth of the […]

Worst ice conditions ever recorded kill Canada seals before hunters can

CHARLOTTETOWN, Prince Edward Island, Canada, March 26, 2010 (ENS) – Thousands of harp seal pups are presumed dead in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence and starving pups are being found abandoned on the beaches of Prince Edward Island, victims of the worst ice conditions ever recorded in the region. Environment Canada said March 16 that […]

The Carbon Quilt: Making sense of the world’s carbon footprint

The Carbon Quilt is a universal tool to make greenhouse gases visible. London’s daily carbon dioxide emissions. 139 thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide would fill a sphere 521 metres across. To most Londoners, ‘139 thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide’ is not a very meaningful quantity. Illustrating it in the context of London landmarks allows viewers […]

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