Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Melbourne dams suffer driest decade

By PETER KERJanuary 13, 2010 MELBOURNE’S dams collected more water than the city needed in 2009, but it was a rare triumph for the old system at the end of a dire decade. Data released yesterday showed the decade between 2000 and 2009 was easily the driest on record for inflows to the city’s major […]

Graph of the Day: Unemployed Over 26 Weeks, 1969-2009

From Calculated Risk: The underlying details of the employment report are mostly weak. A couple of exceptions are the manufacturing diffusion index has increased significantly over the last couple of months (see below), and temporary help hiring has been strong (see previous post). Otherwise this report was grim: Average weekly earnings declined. Average weekly hours […]

New South Wales to share floodwaters to ease disaster at mouth of Murray

By TOM ARUPJanuary 13, 2010 THE NSW Government has agreed to allow some of the floodwater finding its way into the Murray-Darling river system to flow through to the endangered Coorong wetlands at the mouth of the Murray in South Australia. The decision by the Premier, Kristina Keneally, yesterday comes after immense pressure from the […]

Relentless summers create dam dilemma in Australia

By BRIAN ROBINSJanuary 13, 2010 RISING average temperatures are reducing run-off into Sydney dams when it rains, putting the future of the city’s water supplies under a cloud. As a result, Sydney Water wants to operate the Kurnell desalination plant even when there are several years’ water supply in the Sydney dam network. Trials are […]

Migratory birds bear brunt of climate-changed weather

January 12, 2010 by Terry Devitt (PhysOrg.com) — As global climate change fuels more frequent and intense hurricanes and droughts, migratory birds, especially those whose populations are already in decline, will bear the brunt of such climate-fueled weather, suggest a pair of new studies. Writing in the December online issue of the journal Global Change […]

California butterfly populations declining rapidly; ‘There is nowhere to go except heaven’

(University of California – Davis) California butterflies are reeling from a one-two punch of climate change and land development, says an unprecedented analysis led by UC Davis butterfly expert Arthur Shapiro.The new analysis, scheduled to publish online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gives insights on how a major […]

Image of the Day: Bear Glacier Melt Viewed from Space

By Claire BatesLast updated at 8:02 AM on 23rd September 2009 These awe-inspiring images of glaciers are helping scientists to determine just how quickly our planet is heating up. The huge ice fields are thought to be one of the most reliable indicators of climate change and are best studied from space. The features form […]

Madagascar sanctions logging of national parks

www.wildmadagascar.org via MongabayJanuary 11, 2010 Madagascar has legalized the export of rosewood logs, possibly ushering in renewed logging of the country’s embattled rainforest parks. The transitional authority led by president Andry Rajoelina, who seized power during a military coup last March, today released a decree that allows the export of rosewood logs harvested from the […]

Australia oyster farming collapses

By DEBRA JOPSONJanuary 12, 2010 They are the farmers who play god to the oysters which feed Sydney. In Tuross Lake there are no longer natural tides since the big dry closed the nearby river entrance to the sea last year, so Graeme Campbell and his son Daniel replicate the flow which keeps their stock […]

Deadly jellyfish bloom off Australia coast

By MARISSA CALLIGEROSJanuary 12, 2010 – 1:54PM Potentially deadly marine stingers may be blooming in unprecedented numbers off the Queensland coast, as far south as Moreton Bay. But a request by a world-leading expert  to study the phenomenon has been denied by the Australian Research Council, despite mounting evidence overseas and a series of recent […]

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