Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

China is driving a boom in Brazil mining, but at what cost? “This voracious mining is not just very predatory for the ecosystem, it is economically predatory to the nation. In the long run, it is disastrous.”

By Milton Leal 31 July 2017 (Diálogo Chino) – In the middle of northern Brazil’s Amazon jungle, digging equipment rasps at the bottom of a giant iron ore mine. Here in the municipality of Canaã dos Carajás in the Serra dos Carajás in Brazil’s Pará state, some 1,600 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, Chinese […]

Asia’s enigmatic clouded leopard threatened by palm oil plantations

By Sean Mowbray 17 August 2017 (Mongabay) – Tigers and orangutans are the well-known faces of the palm oil crisis. But the enigmatic clouded leopard is equally threatened and almost unknown in comparison. Conservationists are looking at ways to make palm oil plantations work for it, rather than against it. “We know very little about […]

Believing that the future will be favorable may prevent action – “People biasedly believe that others will change in ways that align with their current preferences, views, and beliefs”

3 August 2017 (APS) – People tend to believe that others will come around to their point of view over time, according to findings from a series of studies published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The findings show that this “belief in a favorable future” holds across various contexts […]

Asset management company Schroders forecasts global warming of more than 4°C by the year 2100

17 July 2017 (Schroders) – Global temperatures are on course to rise by up to 4°C, twice as far as safe levels, according to a Climate Progress Dashboard developed by the Schroders Sustainability team.The unique dashboard tracks the progress governments and industries are making towards meeting the 2°C temperature rise commitment global leaders made in […]

Trump eliminates plastic water bottle ban in National Parks, removes White House bikeshare station

By Lorraine Chow 17 August 2017 (EcoWatch) – President Trump has made sweeping efforts to scrap Obama-era environmental protections, but the current administration’s latest moves are oddly specific.The National Park Service (NPS) announced Wednesday that it has rescinded the 2011 “Water Bottle Ban” that allowed parks to prohibit the sale of disposable plastic water bottles. […]

Leading elephant conservationist shot dead in Tanzania – “Wayne can be credited as the driving force behind ending the unscrupulous slaughter of Tanzania’s elephants”

By Sophie Tremblay 17 August 2017 (The Guardian) – The head of an animal conservation NGO who had received numerous death threats has been shot and killed by an unknown gunman in Tanzania. Wayne Lotter, 51, was shot on Wednesday evening in the Masaki district of the city of Dar es Salaam. The wildlife conservationist […]

Trump signs order to end Obama-era flood risk building standards

By Pam Wright 15 August 2017 (The Weather Channel) – President Donald Trump revoked an Obama-era executive order that required strict building standards for all federal building projects to reduce the risk from increased sea level rise flooding. Trump signed the executive order Tuesday to end the Obama standards in order to “streamline the current […]

Study explains rapidly rising sea level on U.S. East Coast – “We need to understand that the ocean is coming”

By Stephenie Livingston 9 August 2017(University of Florida) – When the Indian River Lagoon on Florida’s Atlantic coast became much saltier after 2011, Arnoldo Valle-Levinson began to investigate.The UF professor of civil and coastal engineering sciences in the College of Engineering checked local tidal gauges, revealing that seas in the region were rising nearly 10 […]

International report confirms 2016 was warmest year on record for the globe – Largest annual increase in greenhouse gases in the 58-year record

10 August 2017 (NOAA) – The 27th annual State of the Climate report has confirmed that 2016 topped 2015 as the warmest year in 137 years of record keeping. The report found that most indicators of climate change continued to follow trends of a warming world, and several, including land and ocean temperatures, sea level […]

Canada wildfires “apocalyptic” – “In my experience and that of the pilots here, we’ve never seen anything like this”

By Adriana  Weber 9 August 2017 (Radio NZ) – A New Zealand helicopter pilot fighting enormous wildfires in Canada says everyone works in an ”apocalyptic twilight” amid the worst conditions he has experienced in 25 years. More than 200 wildfires are burning across the country, with the majority of those ablaze in British Columbia, which […]

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