Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Australia baked under hottest decade on record

By Michael PerryTue Jan 5, 2010 9:24am EST SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia experienced its hottest decade on record from 2000 to 2009 due to global warming, the nation’s bureau of meteorology said on Tuesday, as annual summer bushfires again burn drought lands and destroy homes. The average temperature in Australia over the past 10 years […]

Australia: Too much rain, and not nearly enough

By MALCOLM BROWNJanuary 6, 2010 WAYNE DUNFORD, 59, has copped it both ways – flooded out at his cattle property at Brewarrina and enduring conditions so dry at his home property at Parkes that the small amount of rain he has received since Christmas has been swallowed by the dust. Like many others in the […]

Graph of the Day: Mid-tropospheric Carbon Dioxide, Sep 2002 – Jul 2008

This visualization is a time-series of the global distribution and variation of the concentration of mid-tropospheric carbon dioxide observed by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on the NASA Aqua spacecraft. For comparison, it is overlain by a graph of the seasonal variation and interannual increase of carbon dioxide observed at the Mauna Loa, Hawaii observatory. […]

Environmental refugees unable to return home

By JOANNA KAKISSISPublished: January 3, 2010 DHAKA, BANGLADESH — Mahe Noor left her village in southern Bangladesh after Cyclone Sidr flattened her family’s home and small market in 2007. Jobless and homeless, she and her husband, Nizam Hawladar, moved to this crowded megalopolis, hoping that they might soon return home. Two years later, they are […]

Nepal suffers power blackouts as rivers dry up

Kathmandu, Dec 29 (IANS) Slapped with a 51-hour weekly power outage from Wednesday and a warning that next month it could go up to 12 hours a day, Nepal has begun to lose its lustre as a holiday destination, especially for the budget tourist from India who crosses over the open border by bus. The […]

China blames freak storm on global warming

By JOHN GARNAUT HERALD CORRESPONDENTJanuary 5, 2010 BEIJING: Freak snowstorms and record low temperatures sweeping northern China are linked to global warming, say Chinese officials. But, unlike the unseasonal snow falls that hit Beijing at the start of winter, the dump this week appears to have no link to the Government’s relentless efforts to change […]

Plants and animals race for survival as climate change creeps across the globe

By David Adamwww.guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 23 December 2009 18.20 GMT Lowland tropics, mangroves and deserts at greater risk than mountainous areas as global warming spreads, study finds Global warming creeps across the world at a speed of a quarter of a mile each year, according to a new study that highlights the problems that rising temperatures […]

Gone: a look at extinction over the past decade

A survey of twelve species lost to extinction over the past ten years. By Jeremy Hancewww.mongabay.comJanuary 03, 2010 No one can say with any certainty how many species went extinct from 2000-2009. Because no one knows if the world’s species number 3 million or 30 million, it is impossible to guess how many known species—let […]

Half of euro zone countries at risk of sovereign default

In 2010, many nations in the currency bloc will attempt to shore up finances and sustain fitful economic recoveries By TERENCE ROTH After two years of crashing banking systems and economic recession, the euro zone enters 2010 with a full-blown debt crisis. The European Commission warns that public finances in half of the 16 euro-zone […]

Elephants, other iconic animals dying in Kenya drought

By Nick Wadhams in Nairobi, for National Geographic News, September 21, 2009 This story is part of a special series that explores the global water crisis. For more clean water news, photos, and information, visit National Geographic’s Freshwater Web site. More than sixty African elephants and hundreds of other animals have died so far in […]

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