Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Half the planet could be hit by food crisis by 2100: study

AFP – Half of the world’s population could face food shortages by the end of this century due to climate change, a new study warned Thursday. According to researchers, there is a 90 percent probability that by 2100 the minimum temperatures in the tropics and sub-tropical regions will be higher than the maximums so far […]

Sea level rise of one meter within 100 years

New research indicates that the ocean could rise in the next 100 years to a meter higher than the current sea level — which is three times higher than predictions from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. The groundbreaking new results from an international collaboration between researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute at […]

China aims to increase coal production 30 pct by 2015: govt

AFP – China is aiming to increase its coal production by about 30 percent by 2015 to meet its energy needs, the government has announced, in a move likely to fuel concerns over global warming. China aims to increase coal production 30 pct by 2015: govt (AFP) Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:36:03 GMT Technorati Tags: […]

Chesapeake Bay recovery "hopeless"

By David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post Staff Writer Government administrators in charge of an almost $6 billion cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay tried to conceal for years that their effort was failing — even issuing reports overstating their progress — to preserve the flow of federal and state money to the project, former officials say. […]

US loses 700,000 jobs in December

Jon C. Ogg, January 7, 2009 This is a revised number with new methodology, but ADP’s job loss number predictions for December are off the chart.  ADP had previously been under expectations where Wall Street economists were 500,000 non-farm payroll losses.  This new revised target from ADP is now showing that ADP expects to see […]

Cause of dead pelicans baffles California rescuers

By Gordon Tokumatsu, NBCBayArea.com SAN PEDRO, Calif. — They’re turning up on roads, in backyards, beaches and marinas, say wildlife experts, starved and too exhausted to fly. They’re California brown pelicans, a species that once neared extinction a couple of decades ago. No one knows why so many of them have been found emaciated and […]

Acidification, climate change killing off corals

Ocean acidification and rising temperatures are gradually killing off the biggest and most robust corals on the Great Barrier Reef since 1990, the “tipping point” year, says a new study. The study, authored by Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) scientists Glenn De’ath, Janice Lough and Katharina Fabricius, is the most comprehensive one to date […]

Amazon deforestation trend on the increase

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon forests has flipped from a decreasing to an increasing trend, according to new annual figures recently released by the country’s space agency INPE. Commenting on the figures, Brazilian environment minister Carlos Minc confirmed that the government will on Monday announce forest related carbon emission reduction targets, which will link halting deforestation […]

Maldives 'rubbish island' turns paradise into dump

Thilafushi receives hundreds of tonnes of rubbish from other islands in the Maldives every day. Sixteen years ago it was an unspoilt coral reef. But it is now growing by one square metre every day with rubbish. Elin Hoyland took these striking photographs that document the growing problem of waste disposal on these beautiful islands […]

2009 to be one of warmest years on record: researchers

(Reuters) – Next year is set to be one of the top-five warmest on record, British climate scientists said on Tuesday. The average global temperature for 2009 is expected to be more than 0.4 degrees celsius above the long-term average, despite the continued cooling of huge areas of the Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as […]

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