Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Greenland witnessed its highest June temperature ever recorded on Thursday – ‘We had to check that our models were still working properly’

By Jason Samenow and Angela Fritz 10 June 2016 (Washington Post) – Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, soared to 75 degrees (24 Celsius) Thursday, marking the warmest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic country during June. Nuuk sits on Greenland’s southwest coast, where the country’s warmest weather typically occurs. It was warmer in Nuuk than it was […]

World sets record for fossil fuel consumption in 2015 – Net increase in fossil fuel consumption was 2.6 times the increase in the consumption of renewables

By Robert Rapier8 June 2016 (Forbes) – Each year in June two very important reports are released that provide a comprehensive view of the global energy markets. The highlight of the recently released Renewables 2016 Global Status Report was that the world’s renewable energy production has never been higher. But the biggest takeaway from this […]

U.S. Congress aims to cut climate science – Proposed cuts to NOAA and NASA target climate change research in particular

By Gayathri Vaidyanathan2 June 2016 (ClimateWire) – Congress is considering spending bills that would significantly cut funding for key climate change research by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2017. Among the losers: the oldest carbon dioxide observatories on the planet, the ability to track fossil fuel emissions in the United States […]

Video: Diving in the stench of millions of rotting animals at the bleached Great Barrier Reef

7 June 2016 (Guardian) – Richard Vevers from the Ocean Agency had never experienced anything like the devastation he witnessed in May diving around the dead and dying coral reefs off Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef. When his team emerged from the water, he says, ‘We realised we just stank – we stank […]

Greenpeace: More than 3.5 million hectares of forest burning in eastern Russia

By Khalimat Tekeeva3 June 2016 (Greenpeace) – According to analysis of recent satellite data, forest fires in eastern Russia currently cover more than 3.5 million hectares of forested land. An area larger than Belgium! And the fire season in Russia isn’t over yet. This year’s forest fires are close to becoming one of the most […]

Meteorologists are seeing the effects of global warming – ‘Whatever happened to normal weather?’

By Paul Douglas27 May 2016 (Guardian) – Whatever happened to normal weather? Earth has always experienced epic storms, debilitating drought, and biblical floods. But lately it seems the treadmill of disruptive weather has been set to fast-forward. God’s grand Symphony of the Seasons, the natural ebb and flow of the atmosphere, is playing out of […]

White House warned of growing methane danger from fracking – ‘Total greenhouse gas emissions have been rising since at their most rapid rate ever, due to shale gas development and large methane emissions’

[cf. Our leaders thought fracking would save our climate – ‘Methane emissions are substantially higher than we’ve understood’] By Blaine Friedlander2 June 2016 (Cornell Chronicle) – As methane intensifies greenhouse gas in the atmosphere – propelling average global temperatures higher toward the brink of no return – Cornell’s Robert Howarth briefed the White House’s Office […]

America’s shrinking middle class: A close look at changes within metropolitan areas – The middle class lost ground in nearly nine-in-ten U.S. cities

11 May 2016 (Pew Research Center) – The American middle class is losing ground in metropolitan areas across the country, affecting communities from Boston to Seattle and from Dallas to Milwaukee. From 2000 to 2014 the share of adults living in middle-income households fell in 203 of the 229 U.S. metropolitan areas examined in a […]

Amazon deforestation increases by one third over 2015 – Forest degradation up 733 percent

[Translation by Bing Translator.] By Antônio Fonseca, Marcelo Justino, Carlos Souza Jr., and Adalberto Veríssimo31 May 2016 (Imazon) – In April 2016, 42% of the forested area of the Amazon rainforest was covered by clouds, a lower coverage than April 2015 (55%). States with larger cloud coverage were Roraima (86%) and Amapá (84%). In the […]

Homecoming begins for residents of fire-ravaged Canadian city – ‘It is not a clean, safe, normal environment that you’re walking into’

EDMONTON, Alberta, 31 May 2016 (AP) – A phased return of more than 80,000 residents of the fire-damaged oil sands city Fort McMurray will begin Wednesday as planned, Alberta’s premier announced Tuesday. Rachel Notley said that the wildfire is no longer an imminent threat to the city and critical infrastructure has been repaired. The massive […]

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