Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Acidified landscape around ocean vents foretells grim future for coral reefs

By Robin McKie, science editorThe Observer, Sunday 21 February 2010 Huge vents covering the sea-floor – among the strangest and most spectacular sights in nature – pour carbon dioxide and other gases into the deep waters of the oceans. Last week, as researchers reported that they had now discovered more than 50,000 underwater volcanic springs, […]

Study says businesses cause $2.2 trillion in environmental damage

Report for the UN into the activities of the world’s 3,000 biggest companies estimates one-third of profits would be lost if firms were forced to pay for use, loss and damage of environment   [UPDATE: Fixed broken link to Stern review – thanks to the good folks at LearnStuff.]  By Juliette Jowitwww.guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 February […]

Madeira floods kill 40, rescuers hunt for missing — one-day rainfall exceeds monthly average

  Reporting by Andrei Khalip; Editing by Andrew Dobbie FUNCHAL, Portugal (Reuters) – Portuguese rescue workers using bulldozers searched on Sunday for more bodies under debris after violent floods and mudslides killed at least 40 people on the resort island of Madeira. Authorities flew more rescue teams and military engineers from the mainland to help […]

Swimmers undeterred by algae red alert in Murray River

By PETER KERFebruary 22, 2010 Close to 300 kilometres of the Murray River has been declared off limits to humans and animals, as a toxic algal bloom worsened yesterday. As the river between Wodonga and Echuca was elevated to ”red alert” for algal bloom, there were concerns the risks to human health were not being […]

Great white sharks more threatened than tigers

  By Steve Connor Saturday, 20 February 2010 The number of great white sharks may have fallen below the number of tigers, one of the world’s most endangered terrestrial species that benefits from a huge effort to save it from extinction. Like tigers, great whites are a top predator and, like tigers, they have suffered […]

Deadly white-nose syndrome still spreading among East Coast bats

The bat-killing fungal infection known as white-nose syndrome (WNS) has spread into Tennessee for the first time. The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) has confirmed that infected bats were found in Worley’s cave in Sullivan County, where they had been hibernating. Most Tennessee caves were closed to visitors last spring to try to prevent WNS […]

Image of the Day: Indian Girl and Kal Bhairav Lake

Bonn, 7 September 2009. Chetan Soni is the first-prize winner of the International Photography Contest of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the secretariat of the Convention, which is based in Bonn, Germany, announced today. The picture depicts a young Indian girl dressed in a colorful blue and orange saree with pot in hand […]

Graph of the Day: Mortgage Purchase Applications, Jan 1990 – Jan 2010

The MBA reports: Mortgage Applications Decrease in Latest MBA Weekly Survey The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 2.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. … The Refinance Index decreased 1.2 percent from the previous week and the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 4.0 percent from […]

New data paint a more toxic picture of TVA coal ash spill, dredging cleanup works estimated at $1 billion

The disastrous coal ash spill that occurred a year ago at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston power plant in eastern Tennessee dumped a whopping 2.66 million pounds of 10 toxic pollutants into the nearby Emory and Clinch rivers — more than all the surface-water discharges from all U.S. power plants in 2007. That’s one of […]

Warmer seas may rob corals and rainforests of clouds

Just 2 °C more and reefs stop producing a cloud-seeding gas, which could leave corals hotter still and rainforests drier Rising ocean temperatures might leave coral reefs in seriously hot water – without clouds for protection. Five years ago Graham Jones and his team at Southern Cross University in Lismore, New South Wales, Australia, demonstrated […]

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