Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

“Sustainable seafood” dealer sold fishy tale – “Honestly, they know. I just don’t think they care.”

By Robin Mcdowell, Margie Mason, Martha Mendoza, Julie Jacobson, and Niniek Karmini 14 June 2018 MONTAUK, New York (Associated Press) – Even after winter storms left East Coast harbors thick with ice, some of the country’s top chefs and trendy restaurants were offering sushi-grade tuna supposedly pulled in fresh off the coast of New York. […]

Borneo’s last remaining orangutans threatened by illegal logging, despite government protection

By Josh Gabbatiss Science Correspondent 5 June 2018 (The Independent) – The forest which is home to some of the last remaining Bornean orangutans is being logged despite the Indonesian government’s vow to protect it, Greenpeace has claimed.The group said six illegal logging settlements had been identified in Sungai Putri, the peatland forest home to […]

U.S. drug overdose deaths continue to rise – Increase fueled by synthetic opioids

29 March 2018 (CDC) – An in-depth analysis of 2016 U.S. drug overdose data shows that America’s overdose epidemic is spreading geographically and increasing across demographic groups. The report, from researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), appears in today’s issue of MMWR. Drug overdoses killed 63,632 Americans in 2016. Nearly two-thirds […]

Antarctica ice-sheet melt increased sharply in 2012 – “The continent is causing sea levels to rise faster today than at any time in the past 25 years”

13 June 2018 (University of Leeds) – Ice losses from Antarctica have increased global sea levels by 7.6 mm since 1992, with two fifths of this rise (3 mm) coming in the last five years alone.The findings are from a major climate assessment known as the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE), and are […]

Global Peace Index 2018: World is less peaceful today than at any time in the last decade – “Acceptance of the Rights of Others” has been deteriorating in Europe and North America since 2005

LONDON, 6 June 2018 (IEP) –  The 12th edition of the annual Global Peace Index (GPI) report, produced by the international think-tank the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), revealed that the world is less peaceful today than at any time in the last decade. The 2018 GPI reveals a world in which the tensions, […]

Trump looking to erect tent cities to house unaccompanied children – “The prospect of detaining kids in tent cities is horrifying”

By Franco Ordonez 13 June 2018 WASHINGTON (McClatchy) – The Trump administration is looking to build tent cities at military posts around Texas to shelter the increasing number of unaccompanied migrant children being held in detention. The Department of Health and Human Services will visit Fort Bliss, a sprawling Army base near El Paso in […]

Video: Orangutan tries to fight off digger destroying its forest home

By Oliver Wheaton 7 June 2018 (The Independent) – An orangutan has been filmed seemingly defending its home from being demolished by loggers. The animal was seen fruitlessly lashing out against a digger in the Sungai Putri forest in Borneo, Indonesia as loggers bulldozed through. The video, which was reportedly filmed in 2013 but only […]

Anti-coal mine activist Suresh Oraon shot dead In Jharkhand, India

7 June 2018 (Countercurrents) – Suresh Oraon (27) of Purnadih Chatra Jharkhand was shot dead this morning. Suresh and his people were the owners of the land on which the state owned Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) built their Purnadih coal mines. Suresh kept fighting CCL and their mafia against land grabbing. When CCL bulldozed the […]

Atmospheric greenhouse gases continue inexorable rise – 2017 was sixth consecutive year CO2 rose by 2 ppm or more

30 May 2018 (NOAA) – NOAA’s Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI), which tracks the warming influence of long-lived greenhouse gases, has increased by 41 percent from 1990 to 2017, up 1 percent from 2016 — with most of that attributable to rising carbon dioxide levels, according to NOAA climate scientists. [cf. NOAA’s greenhouse gas index […]

Yellowstone National Park’s top official, facing reassignment under Trump, is denied option to retire on his terms

By Darryl Fears 7 June 2018 (The Washington Post) – The Trump administration issued a stern reply to Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Daniel Wenk’s offer to retire next year to avoid a reassignment to Washington: Leave your post by August or retire now.As first reported by The Washington Post, Wenk submitted a letter to National […]

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