Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Trump’s pick for environmental job once called belief in global warming “paganism”

By Avery Anapol 19 October 2017(The Hill) – President Trump’s pick for a top environmental post once referred to belief in global warming as ”paganism” for “secular elites.”Kathleen Hartnett White, whom Trump nominated last week to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality, made the comment during a 2016 appearance on the online conservative […]

Should iconic Lake Powell be drained?

By Brittany Patterson 27 October 2017 GLEN CANYON NATIONAL RECREATION AREA, Utah (Scientific American) – Like many places across the West, Lake Powell seems impossibly large, mythical almost, with its rich red rock canyon walls standing in dramatic juxtaposition to the expanse of cerulean below that seems to stretch on forever.Dramatic is an apt way […]

Rising seas are flooding Virginia’s Naval base, and there’s no plan to fix It – “Virtually every coastal city is in a fight for its existence”

By Nicholas Kusnetz 25 October 2017 NORFOLK, Virginia (Inside Climate News) – The one-story brick firehouse at Naval Station Norfolk sits pinched between a tidal inlet and Willoughby Bay. The station houses the first responders to any emergency at the neighboring airfield. Yet when a big storm hits or the tides surge, the land surrounding […]

Nicaragua will join Paris climate pact, leaving U.S., Syria isolated

  By Enrique Pretel, with additional reporting by Valerie Volcovici in Washington; Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Peter Cooney and Lisa Shumaker 23 October 2017 (Reuters) – Nicaragua is set to join the Paris climate agreement, according to an official statement and comments from Vice President Rosario Murillo on Monday, in a move that […]

After Trump calls Puerto Rico hurricane recovery a “10”, ex-governor tweets a pic of doctors operating by cellphone light

By Caitlyn Hitt 23 October 2017 (New York Daily News) – A picture is worth a thousand words. Former Governor of Puerto Rico Alejandro García Padilla took a jab at President Trump on Twitter following comments the President made about the United States’ relief efforts on the island. Padilla questioned Trump’s rating of his performance […]

I am a 30-year veteran scientist from US EPA. I Can’t Afford to Be Discouraged … And neither can you.

By Rita Schoeny 26 October 2017(Save EPA) – Since January, we have seen a continual assault on our environmental protections. EPA has put a political operative with no scientific experience in charge of vetting EPA grants, and the agency is reconsidering an Obama-era regulation on coal ash. The well-established legal processes for promulgating environmental regulations, […]

Study finds ancient oceans were much colder than previously thought, implying global warming is unprecedented within the last 100 million years

By Andrew Griffin 26 October 2017 (The Independent) – Global warming might be far worse than we thought, according to a new study.The research challenges the ways that researchers have worked out sea temperatures until now, meaning that they may be increasing quicker than previously suggested.The methodology widely used to understand sea temperatures in the […]

Progress on fire in West Virginia plastics and chemical warehouse, but questions remain about impacts

By Ken Ward Jr. 27 October 2017 (Charleston Gazette Mail) – Officials reported more progress on Friday putting out the fire that’s been burning for a week at a Parkersburg plastics and chemical warehouse, but West Virginia’s top public health officer cautioned that it’s too soon to make definitive statements about the long-term health effects […]

Puerto Rico’s $300 million energy contract stirs controversy – FEMA has “significant concerns”, Governor requests audit – 72 percent of Puerto Rico still without power

By Timothy Cama and Devin Henry 28 October 2017 (The Hill) – A massive rebuilding contract between Puerto Rico and a small Montana energy company has sparked controversy and raised questions about relief efforts after Hurricane Maria.The $300 million contract between the stricken island’s power utility and two-year-old firm Whitefish Energy Holdings is looking more […]

In wildfire-ravaged Santa Rosa, to stay or go? – “My biggest fear is that we will lose the amazing community that we have because people can’t afford to live here”

By Mike McPhate 25 October 2017 (The New York Times) – With a vacancy rate of around 1 percent, Santa Rosa was a tough place to find a home before its recent disaster. Then the Tubbs fire wiped out about 5 percent of city’s housing stock — roughly 3,000 homes. For some of the displaced, […]

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