Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Video: Iceland poachers butcher endangered fin whale – 22 whales slaughtered so far this season

By Albi Deak 6 July 2018Hvalur 9 returns to whaling station with two more endangered fin whales, 9 hours ago. Hvalur 8 arrives at whaling station with two more endangered fin whales, 3 hours ago.Today marks 14 fin whales poached in #Iceland‘s illegal commercial hunt 2018.Two fin whales beached today near the river at Oyrini […]

Forests “essential” for the future, UN agriculture chief spells out in new report

6 July 2018 (UN News) – Time is running out for the world’s forests, warns a new report by the United Nations agriculture agency, urging governments to foster an all-inclusive approach to benefit both trees and those who rely on them.Halting deforestation, managing forests sustainably, restoring degraded forests and adding to worldwide tree cover all […]

Slow suicide and the abandonment of the world

By Edward Curtin 22 June 2018 (Counterpunch) – Most suicides die of natural causes, slowly and in silence.But we hear a lot about the small number of suicides, by comparison, who kill themselves quickly by their own hands. Of course their sudden deaths elicit shock and sadness since their deaths, usually so unexpected even when […]

Study finds climate change shareholder resolutions have no impact on shareholder value

By David Blackmon 24 June 2018 (Forbes) – A new study finds that the climate-based shareholder resolutions being so actively pushed by proxy advisory firms and their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)-based institutional investors have “no statistically significant impact” on a company’s bottom line, either positive or negative. The study, funded by the National Association […]

44 dead as record rains devastate parts of Japan – Evacuations ordered for two million people

By Hiroshi Hiyama 7 July 2018 HIROSHIMA, Japan (AFP) – The toll in record rains that have devastated parts of Japan rose Sunday to at least 44, officials said, with authorities issuing new warnings as torrential downpours continued. Local media put the toll at 50, with dozens more missing and the number of fatalities expected […]

Graph of the Day: Journalists missing or killed globally, 1992-2018

7 July 2018 (Desdemona Despair) – Journalism has never been a safe profession, but in 2018, it’s more than three times as dangerous as it was 2001. According to data collected by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), murders and disappearances of reporters worldwide have increased from a low of 34 in 2002 to a […]

Global warming may be twice what climate models predict – “The carbon budget to avoid 2°C of global warming may be far smaller than estimated”

5 July 2018 (ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science) – Future global warming may eventually be twice as warm as projected by climate models under business-as-usual scenarios and even if the world meets the 2°C target sea levels may rise six metres or more, according to an international team of researchers from 17 […]

Pope warns climate change turning Earth into desert, garbage

By Nicole Winfield 6 July 2018 VATICAN CITY (AP) – Pope Francis urged governments on Friday to make good on their commitments to curb global warming, warning that climate change, continued unsustainable development and rampant consumption threatens to turn the Earth into a vast pile of “rubble, deserts, and refuse.” Francis made the appeal at […]

Homes destroyed by fires, temperature records shattered as heat wave slams Southern California

By Alejandra Reyes-Velarde, Sarah Parvini, Ruben Vives, and Hailey Branson-Potts 7 July 2018 (Los Angeles Times) – A record-setting heat wave sparked brush fires across Southern California that destroyed homes and forced thousands to evacuate from Santa Barbara to San Diego county. The heat wave, coupled with moderate winds, helped fan nearly a dozen fires […]

Graph of the Day: Increase of airborne black carbon density in India from 2005 to 2016

By Kathryn Hansen 28 June 2018 (NASA) – In recent decades, northern India has been plagued by a double-dose of air pollution due to nearby sources of desert dust and increasing amounts of airborne particles from human activities. New research suggests that winds are spreading the problem, moving some of the pollution southward in ever-increasing […]

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