Blogging the End of the World™
By Gloria MaenderOctober 2003 The rapid removal of at least half a million great whales from the North Pacific Ocean by intensive industrial whaling more than 50 years ago may have unleashed a complex ecological chain reaction that has since rippled resoundingly from ocean to coastal ecosystems, according to a team of eight scientists, including […]
More than 75 million people living on Pacific islands will have to relocate by 2050 because of the effects of climate change, Oxfam has warned. By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney A report by the charity said Pacific Islanders were already feeling the effects of global warming, including food and water shortages, rising cases of malaria […]
By Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York Researchers have a dire forecast for the next six months in the western US: it’ll be exceptionally hot, very dry, and 3.66 million acres will be scorched by fires. Apologies for the End of Days-y language, but the truth is that the researchers who compile the national drought and […]
The Earth is in the throes of its “sixth great extinction event” and Australia and the Pacific are becoming the worst regions for the destruction of animals and plants, a study has found. By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney Land clearing and overlogging of forests have been highlighted as the greatest threats to land-based flora and […]
Via The Oil Drum: Today’s chart provides some perspective on the current earnings environment by focusing on 12-month, as reported S&P 500 earnings. Today’s chart illustrates how earnings are expected (38% of S&P 500 companies have reported for Q2 2009) to have declined over 98% since peaking in Q3 2007, making this by far the […]
By Christopher Joyce When wildlife biologists visited a remote spot in Canada called Banks Island in the spring of 2004, they discovered thousands upon thousands of dead musk oxen. It took years to determine the cause. They called it “rain-on-snow” — the worst case of it ever documented. “Long story short, about 20,000 musk oxen […]
Scientists confirm computer model predictions that oxygen-depleted zones in tropical oceans are expanding, possibly because of climate change Scripps Institution of Oceanography / University of California, San DiegoMAY 1, 2008 An international team of physical oceanographers including a researcher from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has discovered that oxygen-poor regions of tropical […]
British woodlands are less biologically distinctive than they were 70 years ago, says a team of UK researchers. The use of fertilisers in farming had increased soil fertility, while tree canopies had grown thicker and cut light levels, they explained. As a result, the woodlands were becoming home to the same species, resulting in the […]
By Matt Walker, Editor, Earth News Two thirds of all species of freshwater crab maybe at risk of going extinct, with one in six species particularly vulnerable, according to a new survey. That makes freshwater crabs among the most threatened of all groups of animals assessed so far. The study is the first global assessment […]
By Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico, an area choked by low oxygen levels that threatens marine life, is smaller than expected this year but more deadly, the government said on Monday. The zone, caused by a runoff of agricultural chemicals from farms along the Mississippi River, measured […]
