Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Image of the Day: Light projections on the receding Tasman Glacier highlight impact of global warming

8 October 2017 (The Guardian) – A short film shot by Heath Patterson captures photographer Vaughan Brookfield and Tom Lynch’s journey to a New Zealand glacier equipped with hundreds of kilograms of gear and a light projector. Their plan was to project images on to the rapidly receding Tasman Glacier. Brookfield says: “We want to […]

Robert Jay Lifton: Our changing climate mind-set

By Robert Jay Lifton 7 October 2017 (The New York Times) – Climate images have never been able to convey our full planetary danger until now. The extraordinary recent four-punch sequence of hurricanes — Harvey, Irma, Jose, and Maria — threatened the lives of millions of people, obliterated their homes and has raised doubts that […]

“Hell to pay” over water, food deliveries, Puerto Rico governor warns

WASHINGTON, 9 October 2017 (Reuters) – Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rossello said on Monday he ordered an investigation of water distribution on the hurricane-battered island and warned that there would be “hell to pay” for mishandling of the supplies. In an interview with CNN, Rossello said drinking water supplies have been restored to roughly 60 […]

Empty nets signal trouble for Columbia River salmon – “This is really different than anything we have ever seen”

By Lynda V. Mapes 9 October 2017 (The Seattle Times) – Scientists have been hauling survey nets through the ocean off the coasts of Washington and Oregon for 20 years. But this is the first time some have come up empty.“We were really worrying if there was something wrong with our equipment,” said David Huff, […]

Another youth climate lawsuit turns to crowdfunding in Portugal

By Bobby Magill 27 September 2017 (Climate Liability News) – After more than 60 people died in wildfires that scorched central Portugal this summer, a London nonprofit group plans to file suit against 47 European countries on behalf of six children affected by the fires. The lawsuit aims to force the countries to cut their […]

Trump chooses coal lobbyist to be Pruitt’s deputy at the EPA – “Halloween apparently came early this October because the nomination of Andrew Wheeler as Deputy EPA Administrator is absolutely horrifying”

9 October 2017 (IFL Science) – At the end of last week, the White House issued a statement detailing a few more appointments made to senior posts by the President, including the long-absent deputy administration of the beleaguered Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). To no-one’s surprise, that position has gone to Andrew Wheeler, a coal lobbyist […]

Join global treaty to root out the scourge of illegal fishing, urges UN food security agency

6 October 2017 (United Nations) – Calling for strengthening the fight against illegal fishing, the United Nations food security agency has urged all countries to join a landmark global treaty that aims to rid the world of the multibillion-dollar scourge.The Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) – approved by the Conference of the Food and Agricultural […]

Massive fires in Napa and Sonoma counties burn structures, force evacuations, close hospitals

By Peter Fimrite, Jill Tucker, and Demian Bulwa 9 October 2017 (The San Francisco Chronicle) – Several massive wildfires burned out of control in Napa and Sonoma counties early Monday, destroying an untold number of homes and businesses, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people and shutting down major roadways as firefighters sought to halt […]

Soil’s contribution to the carbon cycle in a warming world

AMHERST, Massachusetts, 5 October 2017 (UMass Amherst) – Microbiologist Kristen DeAngelis and her graduate student Grace Pold at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with colleagues at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) and in New Hampshire, report results in the Oct. 6 issue of Science from their study of warming-related soil carbon cycling changes in […]

Analysis: How well have climate models projected global warming?

By Zeke Hausfather 5 October 2017 (CarbonBrief) – Scientists have been making projections of future global warming using climate models of increasing complexity for the past four decades.These models, driven by atmospheric physics and biogeochemistry, play an important role in our understanding of the Earth’s climate and how it will likely change in the future.Carbon […]

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