Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Flood victims in Burkina Faso suffer as climate changes

By Christophe Parayre OUAGADOUGOU (AFP) – A world away from the heated negotiations for a critical deal on stopping climate change at the UN summit in Copenhagen, Burkina Faso inhabitants are suffering the direct consequences of global warming. Jacqueline, Noroudine and Guy-Prosper are among the 150,000 made homeless by floods after the heaviest rainfall in […]

World rice stockpiles hit as yields drop

Rome (UPI) Oct 9, 2009 – Global rice stockpiles have plummeted because of poor crop yields, raising fears of upheaval in international grain markets ahead of the World Food Summit in the Italian capital next month. Sharp increases in rice prices since last year have hit consumers across the world, especially in Asia and the […]

Madagascar forests face destruction

Antananarivo (AFP) Oct 9, 2009 – Environmental groups are protesting the resumption of exports of precious woods from Madagascar, arguing that the wood is logged illegally and that the island’s forests are being destroyed. On September 21 a government decree “temporarily” legalised the export of “certain stocks” of precious woods, citing the need to “evacuate […]

Nuclear waste from France stored in open air in Russia

PARIS (Reuters) – Waste from French power stations was being deposited in the open air in Russia, French newspaper Liberation said on Monday. The paper said 13 percent of French radioactive waste produced by power group EDF could be found in the open air in a town in Siberia to which access is forbidden. The […]

Kashmir's main glacier ‘melting at alarming speed’

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Indian Kashmir’s biggest glacier, which feeds the region’s main river, is melting faster than other Himalayas glaciers, threatening the water supply of tens of thousands of people, a new report warned on Monday. SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Indian Kashmir’s biggest glacier, which feeds the region’s main river, is melting faster than […]

New York’s Lake George hits 23rd 'dead zone' summer

Stream protection rules await action as seasonal problem endures By BRIAN NEARING, Staff writer LAKE GEORGE — With new rules to protect Lake George’s streams still to be unveiled, this summer marked the 23rd in a row in which a pollution-fueled “dead zone” formed in deep water at the southernmost end of the lake. From […]

Freshwater species suffer most as extinctions rise

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO (Reuters) – Creatures and plants living in rivers and lakes are the most threatened on Earth because their ecosystems are collapsing, scientists said on Sunday. They urged the creation of a new partnership between governments and scientists to help stem extinctions caused by humans via pollution, a spread of […]

Graph of the Day: Murray-Darling Basin Active Water Storage, July 1996 to July 2009

MDBA active (useable water) storage at the end of July was 1,470 GL or 17% of capacity (Figure 4). This is similar to this time last year (1,480 GL) but well below the July long term average of 5,610 GL. MDBA active storage has now been below average since early 2002. There was also about […]

Australia state creates more than 1000 bushfire safe havens

  By JONATHAN DART, October 10, 2009 MORE than 1000 properties across the state are expected to be earmarked and prepared as shelters of last resort in case of a bushfire. In one of the largest collaborative projects between the state’s Rural Fire Service and emergency services, the ”neighbourhood safer places” will be chosen, prepared […]

Organic mucilage blobs proliferating through oceans

By Christine Dell’Amore, National Geographic News, October 8, 2009 Beware of the blob—this time, it’s for real. As sea temperatures have risen in recent decades, enormous sheets of a mucus-like material have begun forming more often, oozing into new regions, and lasting longer, a new Mediterranean Sea study says (sea “mucus” blob pictures). And the […]

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