Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Methane release from beneath Greenland’s melting ice sheet rivals major world rivers

By Lauren C. Andrews2 January 2019 (Nature) – Sediments beneath glaciers and ice sheets harbour carbon reserves that, under certain conditions, can be converted to methane, a potent greenhouse gas. However, the formation and release of such methane is an unquantified component of the Arctic methane budget. Writing in Nature, Lamarche-Gagnon et al.1 present direct […]

Amazon deforestation increase continued in November 2018 – Deforestation was four times higher than in November 2017

By Stefania Costa 2 January 2019 (Imazon) – Deforestation continues to increase, according to data from the Deforestation Bulletin (SAD) November 2018 published today by Imazon. The state of Pará contributed with 63% of deforestation alerts registered in November 2018. The areas that suffered the most destruction are mainly in the northeast of the state, […]

Brazil’s new far-right government issues decrees across sectors – Indigenous land claims handed over to Agriculture Ministry

By Anthony Boadle2 January 2019 BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s new President Jair Bolsonaro set to work quickly on Wednesday, with his administration issuing decrees affecting the economy, agriculture and society, while forging closer political ties with the United States. Bolsonaro, a former army captain and seven-term congressman, won elections in October and was sworn in […]

Can a Democrat win the U.S. presidency on climate change? “We have two existential threats right now: one is to our natural systems, and one is to our economic systems”

By Edward-Isaac Dovere 2 January 2019 OLYMPIA, Washington (The Atlantic) – What if a meteor were hurtling toward the Earth, about to kill millions and reshape life on the planet as we know it? And what if the president, instead of doing anything to help, made it worse in just about every way, and called […]

Jordan to drill fossil water wells a half-mile underground – “After this, we are out of chances”

By Linda Givetash1 January 2019 AMMAN, Jordan (NBC News) – For the past decade, Khawla Qisi has trapped herself at home on Fridays. It’s the only day of the week her apartment building receives water, and she has to make the most of it. “I can’t do anything else but focus on the water,” she […]

Doomiest images of 2018

1 January 2019 (Desdemona Despair) – Nothing captured the madness of 2018 better than the record-breaking California fire season. Along with the fire tornado near Redding and the incineration of Paradise, the global trend toward burn-it-all populism and political dissolution felt like a conflagration consuming the world. White supremacists stalked people of color in east […]

Doomiest graphs of 2018

31 December 2018 (Desdemona Despair) – At the end of every year since 2010, Des reviews all of the year’s posts and picks a few that are the “doomiest”. Because there are nearly 1,000 posts in a typical year, this is a time-intensive – and depressing – project. In November 2018, after trolling through all […]

Copper mine destroying forests in Panama’s Mesoamerican Biological Corridor

By José Arcia 24 December 2018 (Mongabay) – From the air one can observe the destruction wrought by an open-pit mining project in Cerro Petaquilla and on the ground people talk about its environmental consequences. A security checkpoint and a sign announce that you have reached one of the entrances of the project in the […]

Trump BLM auctions off 150,000 acres of public lands for fracking near Utah national parks – “This is a reckless fire sale of spectacular public lands for dirty drilling and fracking”

12 December 2018 (Center for Biological Diversity) – On Tuesday the Trump administration offered more than 150,000 acres of public lands for fossil-fuel extraction near some of Utah’s most iconic landscapes, including Arches and Canyonlands national parks. Dozens of Utahns gathered at the state Capitol to protest the lease sale, which included lands within 10 […]

Popular “Friends of Science” video promoted by YouTube presents long list of climate myths – “This video is an embarrassment”

By Scott Johnson 21 December 2018 (Climate Feedback) – This video of a talk by author and speaker Steve Goreham, posted by the YouTube channel “Friends of Science” has been viewed over 250,000 times and has been widely promoted by Youtube recently. In it, Goreham claims that climate change is not dangerous, and is not […]

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