Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

These “missing charts” may change the way you think about fossil fuel addiction

By Barry Saxifrage 13 July 2017 (National Observer) – To address the twin threats of climate change and ocean acidification, nearly every nation has promised to reduce fossil fuel burning. But so far, humanity keeps burning ever more. Last year we did it again, burning an all-time record amount.That’s according to data compiled from the […]

Larsen C responds to the calving of Iceberg A68

By Adrian Luckman and Martin O’Leary 19 July 2017 (Project MIDAS) – On July 12 2017, data from the Sentinel-1 satellite confirmed the calving from the Larsen C Ice Shelf of Iceberg A68, a slab of ice 5,800 km in area and weighing more than 1 trillion tonnes. New Sentinel-1 interferometry data from July 18 […]

Carbon in atmosphere is rising, even as emissions stabilize

By Justin Gillis 26 June 2017 CAPE GRIM, Tasmania (The New York Times) – On the best days, the wind howling across this rugged promontory has not touched land for thousands of miles, and the arriving air seems as if it should be the cleanest in the world. But on a cliff above the sea, […]

Joel Clement: I’m a scientist. I’m blowing the whistle on the Trump administration.

By Joel Clement 19 July 2017 (The Washington Post) – I am not a member of the deep state. I am not big government. I am a scientist, a policy expert, a civil servant and a worried citizen. Reluctantly, as of today, I am also a whistleblower on an administration that chooses silence over science. […]

Burning fossil fuels almost ended all life on Earth – “It should be a national priority to study the Permian to figure out what the hell happened”

By Peter Brannen 11 July 2017 (The Atlantic) – “Who you with?” “I’m a science journalist,” I said, jolted from my reverie on the shoulder of I-68 in Maryland, where a crowd of geologists had gathered on a field trip to poke at some rocks revealed by the highway department’s dynamite. The rocks, slate gray […]

Trump EPA chief wants to enlist a “Red Team” to sow doubts about climate science

By Josh Voorhees 30 June 2017 (Slate) –  Scott Pruitt is hatching a new plan to turn his personal and unreasonable denial of the accepted science on climate change into official federal policy: He’ll employ military tactics to review climate science to assess the “truth.” Or, as a new report in E&E News’ ClimateWire put […]

Measles kills 35 across Europe – “Every death or disability caused by this vaccine-preventable disease is an unacceptable tragedy”

By James Gallagher 11 July 2017(BBC News) – Thirty-five people have died in the past year from measles outbreaks across Europe, the World Health Organization has warned.It described the deaths – which can be prevented with vaccination – as an “unacceptable tragedy”.A six-year-old boy in Italy was the latest to die from the infection. More […]

Marin County sues energy companies over climate risks

By Richard Halstead, Marin Independent Journal 17 July 2017 (Marin Independent Journal) – Marin County sued 37 oil, gas, and coal companies Monday asserting the companies knew their fossil fuel products would cause sea level rise and coastal flooding but failed to reduce their greenhouse gas pollution. The lawsuit was part of a coordinated litigation […]

Al Gore has given up hoping Trump will acknowledge climate science – “I thought that there was a chance he would come to his senses. But I was wrong.”

By Aida Chavez 18 July 2017 (The Hill) – Former Vice President Al Gore says he’s given up hope that President Trump will “come to his senses” and act on climate issues.Gore on Monday night told “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert that his hopes about Trump were wrong.”I went to Trump Tower after the election,” […]

U.S. Congressman Lamar Smith doesn’t think global warming is real – He just went on a secret tour of the melting Arctic

By Zahra Hirji 14 July 2017 (BuzzFeed News) – Lamar Smith, one of the most vocal critics of climate science in Congress, led a secret trip to the Arctic in May, BuzzFeed News has learned.He and at least eight other US representatives, mostly members of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, met with […]

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