Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

For normally stoic farmers, the stress of climate change can be too much to bear

By Tyler Hamilton 28 February 2016 (The Star) – The wind was unusually strong, and it swept across Saskatchewan farmland without warning or mercy to canola farmers who had just cut and laid out their crops to dry. Kim Keller, 31, remembers the mid-September day clearly. It was 2012, her first year working back on […]

Requiem for the Mekong river

11 February 2016 (The Economist) – Guo, the driver, pulls his car to a merciful halt high above a crevasse: time for a cigarette, and after seven hours of shuddering along narrow, twisting roads, time for his passengers to check that their fillings remain in place. Lighting up, he steps out of the car and […]

Despite drought, Californians fall short in water cutbacks

SAN FRANCISCO, 25 February 2016 (AP) – Californians are starting to fall behind the state’s mandatory 25-percent water conservation target even though the state remains in drought, state officials said Thursday. As of January, water users in California’s cities and towns have managed to use 24.8 percent less water since mandatory conservation began last year, […]

Last of six toothfish poaching vessels arrested in Indonesia – ‘The entire fleet of the toothfish poachers is in disarray with no poachers fishing in Antarctica for the first time in more than 10 years’

26 February 2016 (Sea Shepherd Global) – The hunt for the last of six known toothfish poaching vessels has ended with the arrest of the Nigerian-flagged Viking in Indonesia. The announcement of the vessel’s arrest was made at a press conference in Jakarta today, held by Indonesian Fisheries Minister, Susi Pudjiastuti, the Commander of the […]

Photo gallery: Aftermath of Cyclone Winston in Fiji

By Lucy Thackray25 February 2016 (Daily Mail) – Fiji is in a state of natural disaster and its people are in urgent need after Cyclone Winston ripped through the Island nation and left a trail of destruction and heartbreak with 44 dead, more than 35,000 homeless and everyone – babies, families and the elderly – […]

Seas are now rising faster than they have in 2,800 years, scientists say

By Chris Mooney 22 February 2016 (Washington Post) – A group of scientists says it has now reconstructed the history of the planet’s sea levels arcing back over some 3,000 years — leading it to conclude that the rate of increase experienced in the 20th century was “extremely likely” to have been faster than during […]

UN rights chief warns police agreement by five European countries will worsen refugee crisis

25 February 2016 (UN) – The top United Nations human rights official expressed serious concern today over security measures adopted last week by the police chiefs of five European countries, which he warned are already negatively impacting the human rights of refugees and migrants in southern and central Europe and compounding the “already exceptionally difficult […]

University of Chicago professors urge fossil fuel divestment over climate change – ‘Profiting from these industries conflicts with the paramount social value of avoiding significant and permanent degradation of our planet’

By Suzanne Goldenberg22 February 2016 (Guardian) – More than 250 professors at the University of Chicago have called on the school to fight climate change by ridding itself of fossil fuel holdings – a gesture that would have exceptional resonance from the former home of Barack Obama and alma mater of current presidential contender Bernie […]

Forest fires threaten wipeout for Siberia conifers as deciduous trees take over – In 2015, 2.6 million hectares of forest burned in Russia

24 February 2016 (Siberian Times) – Global warming spells doom for boreal forests with potentially dramatic implications for carbon release in dark taiga. Climate change is behind a rise in forest fires which are having a direct impact on the tree balance in Siberia, according to a new international study. This shows that conifers are […]

Scientists link massive starfish die-off to warming ocean

By Lynda V. Mapes21 February 2016 (Seattle Times) – It was the starfish arms walking off on their own that alerted biologist Steven Fradkin that something was terribly wrong at Starfish Point at Olympic National Park. Next he noticed white lesions pitting the skin of the usually colorful orange, purple and brick-red starfish that are […]

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