Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Permanent inundation surfaces predicted by CoastalDEM and SRTM given the median K17/RCP 8.5/2100 sea-level projection. Locations include (a) the Pearl River Delta, China; (b) Bangladesh; (c) Jakarta, Indonesia; and (d) Bangkok, Thailand. Low-lying areas isolated from the ocean are removed from the inundation surface using connected components analysis. Current water bodies are derived from the SRTM Water Body Dataset. Gray areas represent dry land. Axis labels denote latitude and longitude. Graphic: Kulp and Strauss, 2019 / Nature Communications

Flooded Future: New elevation maps triple estimates of global risk from sea-level rise and coastal flooding – “By 2100, land now home to 200 million people could sit permanently below the high tide line”

29 October 2019 (Climate Central) – Sea level rise is one of the best known of climate change’s many dangers. As humanity pollutes the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, the planet warms. And as it does so, ice sheets and glaciers melt and warming sea water expands, increasing the volume of the world’s oceans. The consequences […]

Shell’s “cracker” plant under construction in Pennsylvania. Photo: Keith Srakocic / AP

Will a push for plastics turn Appalachia into next “Cancer Alley”? – “It’s so obvious that they are trying to lock us into fossil fuels”

By Emily Holden 11 October 2019 MONACA, Pennsylvania (The Guardian) – Construction cranes climb into the sky and sprawl across the massive petrochemical facility that will turn a byproduct of fracked gas into plastic on the banks of the Ohio River, just outside Pittsburgh. Even at a distance, from the car park of a cancer […]

Comparison of weekly U.S. Drought Monitor for 30 July 2019 and 1 October 2019 shows the rapid progression of drought across the south-central and southeast U.S. Graph: National Drought Mitigation Center

October 2019: A month of extreme weather for the U.S. – “This early-October heat wave appears to the most intense and anomalous on record for such a large region of the U.S.”

By Christopher C. Burt 1 November 2019 (Weather Underground) – October is a month of transition weatherwise for the contiguous U.S. Some years it is a gentle transition from early fall to late fall, and some years an extreme transition from late summer to early winter—as has been the case this year. In fact, it […]

A dog who survived Hurricane Dorian recovers on 7 October 2019 at Big Dog Ranch Rescue in West Palm Beach, Florida and is being called a “miracle” in the Bahamas. The people who rescued the dog have named him Miracle because he survived underneath rubble for about a month. Photo: WPEC-TV

“Miracle” dog that survived more than three weeks trapped in rubble after Hurricane Dorian to meet new adoptive family

2 November 2019 (NBC 6) – Miracle, the dog that was discovered after having spent more than three weeks trapped under destroyed air conditioning units in Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian, will meet his new adoptive family next weekend. Since the dog’s rescue in early October, he has been recovering at Big Dog Ranch […]

Logo of the investment firm, DeltaTerra Capital. Graphic: DeltaTerra Capital

“Big Short” investor David Burt’s new bet: Global warming will bust the housing market – “You end up with a very scary looking situation”

By Geoff Dembicki 1 November 2019 (Vice) – In 2007, almost no one would admit what became obvious in hindsight: The housing market was on the brink of collapse and would take a good chunk of the U.S. economy along with it. Lenders were getting rich, giving home loans to people who couldn’t afford them, investment banks […]

Map of air pollution in India showing Air Quality Index meters maxed at 999 on 3 November 2019. Graphic: AQICN

India air pollution deteriorates to “hazardous” rating – “Pollution has reached unbearable levels across North India”

3 November 2019 (BBC News) – Air pollution in the north of India has “reached unbearable levels,” the capital Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvid Kejriwal says. In many areas of Delhi air quality deteriorated into the “hazardous” category on Sunday with the potential to cause respiratory illnesses. Authorities have urged people to stay inside to protect […]

Portrait of Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, atmospheric scientist and professor of political science at Texas Tech University. Photo: Katharine Hayhoe

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe: I’m a climate scientist who believes in God. Hear me out. – Global warming will strike hardest against the very people we’re told to love: the poor and vulnerable

By Katharine Hayhoe 31 October 2019 (The New York Times) – I’m a climate scientist. I’m also an evangelical Christian. And I’m Canadian, which is why it took me so long to realize the first two things were supposed to be entirely incompatible. I grew up in a Christian family with a science-teacher dad who […]

Indigenous leader Paulo Paulino Guajajara photographed in September 2019. He was hunting on 1 November 2019 inside the Arariboia reservation in Maranhao state when he was attacked and killed by illegal loggers. Photo: Ueslei Marcelino / REUTERS

Illegal loggers assassinate Amazon indigenous warrior who guarded forest, wound another – “The Bolsonaro government has indigenous blood on its hands”

By Anthony Boadle and Leo Benassatto 2 November 2019 BRASILIA (Reuters) – Illegal loggers in the Amazon ambushed an indigenous group that was formed to protect the forest and shot dead a young warrior and wounded another, leaders of the Guajajara tribe in northern Brazil said on Saturday. Paulo Paulino Guajajara, or Lobo (which means […]

Summary of polar bear population status in 2019 by regional subpopulation, showing populations with decreasing trends. Graphic: IUCN / SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG)

Scientists update status of polar bear populations with 2019 data

By Dag Vongraven 20 September 2019 (PBSG) – At the last meeting of the IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) in Anchorage in 2016, the group agreed that there was a need for new and documented criteria for the assessment of status and trends of polar bear populations. Work to develop a new set of […]

People wear masks to protect against “Hazardous” air pollution in Dehli, India, 28 October 2019. Photo: Biplov Bhuyan / Hindustan Times / REX

5 million masks distributed as toxic smog descends on Delhi during Diwali – “Delhi has turned into a gas chamber”

By Guy Davies 1 November 2019 (ABC News) – Five million masks are being distributed throughout schools in Delhi, India, as the chief minister described the city as a “gas chamber” because of the “toxic” air quality. Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister of Delhi, also announced that all schools would be closed in the city […]

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