Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Oceanographer Charles Moore Talks About The Pacific Garbage Patch Speaking at the recent TED Conference in California, oceanographer Charles Moore – who discovered and publicized the huge oceanic gyre of plastic waste known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” — outlined the toll taken on marine life by plastic bottles and caps. Moore, founder of […]

Climate change hurting hares: white snowshoe hares can't hide on brown earth

Researchers have noticed an exceptional number of white snowshoe hares on brown earth. They  contend that climate change and the color mismatch are causing much more hare mortality. On an unseasonably warm May afternoon, University of Montana wildlife biology Professor Scott Mills treks into the shadowy forests above the Seeley-Swan Valley in pursuit of his […]

Low birthrates spell doom for world's rarest rhino

By ROBIN McDOWELL JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Time and space are running out for the Javan Rhinoceros — the most endangered mammal in the world. There are fewer than 60 left in the wild — almost all in a single Indonesian national park — and numbers appear to be declining for the first time in […]

Human role in Indonesian forest fires identified

  Severe fires in Indonesia — responsible for some of the worst air quality conditions worldwide — are linked not only to drought, but also to changes in land use and population density, according to a new study. "During the late 1970s, Indonesian Borneo changed from being highly fire-resistant to highly fire-prone during drought years, […]

"The Greatest Depression" under way

By Gerald Celente Kingston, NY — “The Greatest Depression,” that is The Trends Research Institute forecast, well before Wall Street or Washington would acknowledge recession, is upon us. The global financial markets are collapsing. All the experts’ cautious predictions and business media’s hopeful expectations at the New Year for an economic turnaround and imminent market […]

Graph of the Day: US Unemployment Rate, 1960-2009

From Calculated Risk: And from CNN: Unemployment hits 25-year high Jobless rate hits 8.1% in February as a record-high 12.5 million people are unemployed. By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The U.S. economy continued to hemorrhage jobs in February, bringing total job losses over the last six months to more than […]

Arctic summer sea ice could vanish by 2013

  By David Ljunggren OTTAWA (Reuters) – The Arctic is warming up so quickly that the region’s sea ice cover in summer could vanish as early as 2013, decades earlier than some had predicted, a leading polar expert said on Thursday. Warwick Vincent, director of the Center for Northern Studies at Laval University in Quebec, […]

Graph of the Day: Initial and Continued Unemployment Claims, 1971-2009

I love the smooth nonlinearity of the curves since 2006. From Calculated Risk: The DOL reports on weekly unemployment insurance claims: In the week ending Feb. 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 639,000, a decrease of 31,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 670,000. The 4-week moving average was 641,750, […]

Research warns two degree rise will halve rainforest "carbon sink"

New study warns that even "safe" level of global warming will lead to huge increase in rainforest mortality rates by James Murray The impact of global warming on tropical rainforests will be so severe that even increases in temperature that are widely regarded as "safe" could raise tree mortality rates to such a level that […]

Uganda glaciers gone by 2025; malaria, drought, and crop failure to increase

  KAMPALA, 3 March 2009 (IRIN) – The ice caps on the Rwenzori Mountains along Uganda’s western border have receded significantly in the past century and could disappear completely in the next few years, experts said. "The results of recent mapping are alarming," Philip Gwage, assistant commissioner in charge of meteorology in the ministry of […]

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial