Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

History can no longer guide farmers, investors: U.N.

  By Laura MacInnis GENEVA (Reuters) – Climate change has made history an inaccurate guide for farmers as well as energy investors who must rely on probabilities and scenarios to make decisions, the head of a United Nations agency said on Wednesday. Michel Jarraud, director-general of the World Meteorological Organization, said that water and temperature […]

Carcasses of animals ‘everywhere’ in Kenya drought

By TOM ODULA, Associated Press Writer NAIROBI, Kenya – Crops have shriveled, hundreds of cattle are dead and the World Food Program said Tuesday that 3.8 million Kenyans need emergency food aid because of a prolonged drought, which is even causing electrical blackouts in the capital because there’s not enough water for hydroelectric plants. With […]

Illegal fishing evades U.N. crackdown

ROME (Reuters) – Illegal fishing is depleting the seas and robbing poor nations in Africa and Asia of resources, but a lack of global cooperation is undermining efforts to track rogue vessels, an environmental group said on Tuesday. The Pew Environment Group, a Washington-based think-tank, has found that a United Nations scheme to oblige ports […]

Trees advance in a warming world

By Matt Walker, Editor, Earth News Trees around the world are colonising new territories in response to higher temperatures. From the US west coast to northern Siberia and south-east Asia, trees are growing at higher elevations, and at higher latitudes as the climate warms. Of 166 sites studied, trees are advancing at more than half, […]

Graph of the Day: California Heat Waves, 1948-2006

An index of regional summertime heat wave activity that reflects intensity, duration and spatial extent of heat waves over California and Nevada. The index is computed using nighttime (minimum) temperatures for local durations of at least one, two and three consecutive days/nights. Deadly heat waves are becoming more frequent in California Technorati Tags: heat wave,global […]

World's largest bat hunted nearly to extinction

By Jeremy Hance Under the current legal hunting rate scientists predict that the world’s largest bat, the aptly-named large flying fox or Pteropus vampyrus, faces extinction in six to 81 years. Increasing the urgency to save the large flying fox is the vital role it plays as an ecosystem engineer (a species whose behavior can […]

Environmental stresses reducing size of polar bears

By Victoria Gill, Science reporter, BBC News Polar bears have shrunk over the last century, according to research. Scientists compared bear skulls from the early 20th Century with those from the latter half of the century. Their study, in the Journal of Zoology, describes changes in size and shape that could be linked an increase […]

Ghost suburbs in San Joaquin Valley

Everything is writ large in the San Joaquin Valley: the farms, the sprawl, and the boom and bust cycles. For the past decade, it was population growth, and houses were the cash crop of the day. Now many of those new homes and developments sit empty, gathering dust and weeds. Slide show Ghost Suburbs Technorati […]

California drought sparks conflict between farmers and wetlands

As another water war rages, the west side of California’s storied San Joaquin Valley waits for relief that may not come. By Katie Paul | Newsweek Web Exclusive …After three years of drought, California’s legendary water wars are flaring once again, and towns like Mendota, San Joaquin, and Firebaugh are getting a first glimpse of […]

River that supports Australia's bread basket replaced with desert and toxic algae

Farmer Mazzareno Bisogni fights back tears as he stands among the remains of trees he planted 35 years ago, victims of a drought hitting “Australia’s Mississippi”. Bisogni’s orchard lies in the heart of the once-mighty Murray-Darling river system which irrigates Australia’s food bowl, the vast southeastern corner responsible for 40 percent of agricultural output. The […]

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