Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Species feeling the heat: Connecting deforestation and climate change

Polar bears, long recognized as the poster child for climate change, are not the only species feeling the impacts of climate change. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has released a list of animals facing a host of related threats, in some strange and unexpected ways. In a new report titled “Species Feeling the Heat: Connecting […]

U.K. beach becomes 'starfish graveyard'

By Matthew MoorePublished: 5:00PM GMT 08 Dec 2009 A beach that featured in the closing scene of the film Shakespeare in Love has been left covered with slick of dead starfish. Up to 10,000 of the sea creatures died after being washed up onto Holkham Beach in Norfolk by strong currents during recent storms. Experts […]

Australia: Hottest six months on record

(AAP) — Australia has recorded its hottest six months ever, and is well on track to have the second hottest year since records began, the Bureau of Meteorology says. The World Meteorological Organisation’s annual climate statement released today at Copenhagen found temperatures in 2009 reached 0.44 degrees above the 1961-1990 annual average. “The decade 2000-2009 […]

Video: Hundreds of camels culled in Australia outback town

A major cull of camels is taking place in Australia after residents from a remote outback town complained the animals were destroying their community. The media had been barred from filming the cull but early reports suggested hundreds had been killed only a few hours into the slaughter. Nick Bryant reports from Sydney. Camels culled […]

Image of the Day: Athabasca Oil Sands from Orbit

By Holli Riebeek In the ranking of the world’s proven oil reserves, Canada stands behind only Saudi Arabia. Canada possesses an estimated 178.6 billion barrels of crude oil accessible using current technology. Of this reserve, 174 billion barrels are in Alberta’s oil sand fields, which cover 140,200 square kilometers (54,132 square miles) of the province. […]

MSNBC Nightly News: Peru's melting water source

Perfect Storm: Unless the nation of Peru takes immediate action, the ancient Andean glaciers could disappear, taking with them the runoff that provides much of the water for the country’s most populous areas. NBC’s Anne Thompson reports. Posted: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 4:32 PMFiled Under: On AssignmentBy Anne Thompson, NBC News’ Chief Environmental Affairs Correspondent […]

Scientists at climate talks: ‘The nitrogen cycle is changing faster than that of any other element’

ScienceDaily (Dec. 8, 2009) — An international group of scientists say there is an immediate need for a global assessment of the nitrogen cycle and its impact on climate. On a planetary scale, human activities, especially fertiliser application, have more than doubled the amount of reactive nitrogen in circulation on land. This massive alteration of […]

Up to one billion climate refugees: IOM

GENEVA (Reuters) – Climate change stands to drive as many as one billion people from their homes over the next four decades, the International Organization for Migration said in a study Tuesday. The IOM report, launched on the second day of international climate talks in Copenhagen, estimated 20 million people were made homeless last year […]

Starving polar bears turn to cannibalism

By Jonathan LiewPublished: 2:40PM GMT 08 Dec 2009 New pictures show that polar bears are beginning to cannibalise each other as global warming destroys their hunting grounds.  The images, taken in Hudson Bay, Canada, around 200 miles north of the town of Churchill, Manitoba, show a male polar bear carrying the bloodied head of a […]

First decade of 21st century warmest on record

By Alex Morales Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) — This decade is set to be the warmest on record though 2009 won’t be the hottest year, meteorologists said today, lending fuel to both skeptics and supporters of a global warming agreement being negotiated in Copenhagen. Data from the U.K. Met Office and the United Nations’ World Meteorological […]

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