Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

On World Refugee Day 2018, a record 68.5 million people were forcibly displaced last year

By Morgan Winsor 20 June 2018 (ABC News) – Record high numbers of men, women, and children were driven from their homes across the world last year due to war, violence, and persecution, according to a new report by the United Nations’ refugee agency. The UNHCR’s annual Global Trends study found that a staggering 68.5 […]

Global warming set to exceed 1.5°C and slow economic growth: U.N. draft

By Alister Doyle; editing by John Stonestreet 20 June 2018 OSLO (Reuters) – Global warming is on course to exceed the most stringent goal set in the Paris agreement by around 2040, threatening economic growth, according to a draft report that is the U.N.’s starkest warning yet of the risks of climate change.Governments can still […]

UN chief calls for “solidarity, compassion, and action” on World Refugee Day

20 June 2018 (UN News) – The appeal by Secretary-General António Guterres comes in a video message for World Refugee Day, observed this Wednesday, 20 June 2018.In it, he reported that a person was displaced every two seconds during 2017. “On World Refugee Day, we must all think about what more we can we do […]

How the Koch Brothers are killing public transit projects around the country – “Stopping higher taxes is their rallying cry, but at the end of the day, fuel consumption helps them”

By Hiroko Tabuchi 19 June 2018 NASHVILLE, Tennessee (The New York Times) – A team of political activists huddled at a Hardee’s one rainy Saturday, wolfing down a breakfast of biscuits and gravy. Then they descended on Antioch, a quiet Nashville suburb, armed with iPads full of voter data and a fiery script. The group, […]

American toddlers are eating more sugar than the maximum amount recommended for adults

By Annabelle Timsit 11 June 2018 (Quartz) – We’ve long known that processed sugar is bad for kids. And yet new data presented this week (June 10) at the American Society for Nutrition’s annual meeting show that American infants are consuming excessive amounts of added sugar in their diets, much more than the amounts currently […]

Amazon deforestation in Brazil up 84 percent in April 2018

By Stefania Costa 24 May 2018(Imazon) – In April 2018, SAD detected 217 square kilometers of deforestation in the Amazon forest. In this bulletin, the fraction of deforestation between 1 and 10 hectares was 18% of the total detected (39 square kilometers). Considering only the alerts from 10 hectares, there was an increase of 84% […]

Salem’s Detroit Lake hit with toxic algae advisory for third time after record heat and dry conditions of 2018 season

By Zach Urness 15 June 2018 (Salem Statesman Journal) – This is beginning to feel like a horror movie with a seemingly endless number of sequels. Call it: “Return of the toxic algae at Detroit Lake.” For the third time this season — and the second time in three days — the Oregon Health Authority […]

Warmer ocean water destabilizing Antarctica ice shelves from below also causing massive vertical cracks – “There are dual processes going on here: One that is destabilizing from below, and another from above.”

13 June 2018 (University of Waterloo) – A new study from the University of Waterloo discovered that rising sea levels could be accelerated by vulnerable ice shelves in the Antarctic. The study, by an international team of polar scientists led by Canada Research Chair Christine Dow of Waterloo’s Faculty of Environment, discovered that the process […]

Antarctica ice melt increased by more than five times since 1997-2002 period – “The detailed record shows an acceleration, starting around 2002”

By Chris Mooney 13 June 2018 (The Washington Post) – Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting at a rapidly increasing rate, now pouring more than 200 billion tons of ice into the ocean annually and raising sea levels a half-millimeter every year, a team of 80 scientists reported Wednesday. The melt rate has tripled in the […]

Heavy rainfall has increased by up to 70 percent in parts of U.S. since the 1950s, and it will only get worse – “Precipitation responds to global warming by increasing”

By Pam Wright 9 June 2018 (The Weather Channel) – Heavy rainfall from storms has increased by up to 70 percent in some areas of the United States since the 1950s and will only get worse in the coming years, thanks to global warming, scientists say.The 2014 National Climate Assessment reported that downpours from storms […]

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