Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Graph of the Day: Global increase in herbicide-resistant weeds, 1957-2015

15 April 2015 (weedscience.org) – The International Survey of Herbicide Resistant Weeds is a collaborative effort between weed scientists in over 80 countries.  Our main aim is to maintain scientific accuracy in the reporting of herbicide resistant weeds globally.  This collaborative effort is supported by government, academic, and industry weed scientists worldwide.  This project is […]

Global warming: NASA scientists react to 400 ppm CO2 milestone ‏

(NASA) – The global concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – the primary driver of recent climate change – has reached 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in recorded history, according to data from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. Since 1958, the Mauna Loa Observatory has been gathering data on […]

Pope’s top adviser blasts U.S. climate skeptics

By Timothy Cama12 May 2015 (The Hill) – Pope Francis’ closest adviser castigated conservative climate change skeptics in the United States Tuesday, blaming capitalism for their views. Speaking with journalists, Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga criticized certain “movements” in the United States that have preemptively come out in opposition to Francis’s planned encyclical on climate change. […]

Religious zealot would like to talk to you for a minute about the California drought

By Ben Dreyfuss10 May 2015 (Mother Jones) – As you may know, there is a drought in California. The water? It’s gone! The state? It’s dry! The consequences? Very bad, indeed. Where did the water go? I have no idea. I’m not a private detective who specializes in missing water. Why did the water leave? […]

California looks to Australia for drought advice – ‘Their advice to us was: Conserve, conserve, conserve early to avoid pain later on’

By Chris Nichols9 May 2015 SACRAMENTO (UT San Diego) – Severe dry spells aren’t unique to California. Just ask Australia, where the Millennium Drought stretched from 1997 to 2009, devastating the southeastern portion of the country and forever changing how it uses water. For months now, water experts in California have asked their counterparts Down […]

When humans declared war on fish

By Paul Greenberg and Boris Worm8 MAY 2015 (The New York Times) – On Friday we humans observed V-E Day, the end to one part of a global catastrophe that cost the planet at least 60 million lives. But if we were fish, we would have marked the day differently — as the beginning of […]

English wine’s record year: Production soars to 6.3 million bottles as global warming allows Chardonnay and pinot noir grapes to grow

By Richard Marsden11 May 2015 (Daily Mail) – English wine production soared to a record 6.3 million bottles last year – buoyed by climate change. Vintners say similar conditions now exist in England to those in parts of France ten to 20 years ago, allowing types of grapes such as chardonnay and pinot noir – […]

Sea levels are rising at faster clip as polar melt accelerates, new study shows

By Joby Warrick11 May 2015 (Washington Post) – Global sea levels are climbing at a faster rate than previously thought, according to a new analysis that underscores scientists’ concerns about the impact of melting glaciers and ice sheets near the Earth’s poles. The new research published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change shows that […]

Forbidden data: Wyoming just criminalized citizen science – First state to enact a law so expansive that it criminalizes taking pictures on public land

By Justin Pidot 11 May 2015 (Slate) – Imagine visiting Yellowstone this summer. You wake up before dawn to take a picture of the sunrise over the mists emanating from Yellowstone hot springs. A thunderhead towers above the rising sun, and the picture turns out beautifully. You submit the photo to a contest sponsored by […]

Who controls California’s water?

By Nathanael Johnson11 May 2015 (Grist) – Like lots of people in drought-desiccated California, I have been hustling to educate myself about the power dynamics of water in the state. And so I read this appreciation of California water historian, Norris Hundley Jr., with great interest. It portrays Hundley as the historian whose picture is […]

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