Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Germany’s 2020 greenhouse gas target is no longer feasible

[To my eyechrometer, it looks like progress halted in 2009. It’s possible that this curve has bottomed out, and Germany can’t reduce carbon emissions further without restarting its nuclear plants. –Des] 21 May 2015 (Carbon Counter) – Some of us are slow learners. In 2011, Germany made the decision to shut 8 nuclear reactors and […]

‘Record gap’ between rich and poor – ‘We have reached a tipping point. Inequality in OECD countries is at its highest since records began.’

Paris, 21 May 2015 (AFP) – The gap between the rich and poor in most of the world’s advanced economies is at record levels, according to an OECD study that also found glaring differences between men and women. In most of the 34 countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development the income gap […]

California drought caused by global warming

By Greg Laden22 May 2015 (Science Blogs) – […] A paper just out in Geophysical Research Letters uses modeling and historic data to confirm that the current California drought is very likely an effect of climate change. The paper is “Temperature Impacts on the Water Year 2014 Drought in California“, by Shraddhanand Shukla, Mohammad Safeeq, […]

U.S. agencies fear Gulf oil spill could persist 100 years or more if unchecked

By ERIC TUCKER and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN25 May 2015 WASHINGTON (AP) – A decade-old oil leak where an offshore platform toppled during a hurricane could continue spilling crude into the Gulf of Mexico for a century or more if left unchecked, according to government estimates obtained by The Associated Press that provide new details about the […]

Student chains self to Shell oil vessel in Bellingham Bay

22 May 2015 (The Western Front) – Western Washington University student and activist Chiara D’Angelo boarded the Shell Oil Company vessel Arctic Challenger in Bellingham Bay and fastened herself to the vessel’s anchor chain at approximately 7 p.m. on Friday, May 22, to protest the company’s planned arctic drilling. Around 30 protestors gathered at Cornwall […]

Graph of the Day: Exponential production from the Athabasca bitumen mines, 1985-2014

23 May 2015 (Desdemona Despair) – Recently, Canada announced that it will reduce carbon emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by the year 2030. But the province of Alberta is home to the Athabasca bitumen mines, aka the “Alberta tar sands” mines. The disastrous environmental effects of Alberta’s open pit mines have been […]

Leading health charities should divest from fossil fuels, say climate scientists – Gates Foundation holds $1.4 billion in fossil fuel investments

By Karl Mathiesen, Harry Davies, and James Ball23 May 2015 02.00 EDT (The Guardian) – Senior scientific figures, including influential climate researcher Michael Mann, have called on the world’s two leading health charities to review their fossil fuel investments in light of a series of Guardian investigations published this week. The Big Carbon investigations uncovered […]

Vandals destroy dam, release 49 million gallons of water into San Francisco Bay – ‘It is an utterly senseless, destructive, and wasteful thing to do’

By Mario Sevilla22 May 2015 Fremont (KRON) – Fremont police say vandals attacked an inflatable dam on Alameda Creek that resulted in the loss of nearly 50 million gallons of water. Police believe that those responsible entered a restricted area sometime on Thursday morning and intentionally damaged the dam. “The dam, which is instrumental to […]

Military and police board last two toothfish poaching vessels in Cabo Verde – ‘All six of the Bandit Six have been intercepted’

23 May 2015 (Sea Shepherd Global) – Military and police have boarded the last two Interpol-wanted toothfish poaching vessels, Songhua and Yongding, in Cabo Verde, an archipelago state off the northwest coast of Africa. The action took place thanks to intelligence provided to international law enforcement by Sea Shepherd, which had been gathered two days […]

California’s growing concern: Crops raised with oil field water – ‘When I talk to growers, and they smell the oil field crap in that water, they assume the soil is taking care of this’

By Julie Cart2 May 2012 (Los Angeles Times) – Here in California’s thirsty farm belt, where pumpjacks nod amid neat rows of crops, it’s a proposition that seems to make sense: using treated oil field wastewater to irrigate crops. Oil giant Chevron recycles 21 million gallons of that water each day and sells it to […]

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