Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Places to visit before they’re ruined forever by climate change

By Tanya Lewis24 April 2015 (Business Insider) – Earth Day, which was on April 22 this year, is a time to celebrate and protect the pale blue dot we call home. But some of its crown jewels may be vanishing. Many parts of the globe face threats from warming temperatures, sea level rise, drought, and […]

Secrecy shrouds decade-old oil spill in Gulf of Mexico – ‘A dirty little secret in plain sight’

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and JEFF DONN 16 April 2015 OVER THE GULF OF MEXICO (AP) – A blanket of fog lifts, exposing a band of rainbow sheen that stretches for miles off the coast of Louisiana. From the vantage point of an airplane, it’s easy to see gas bubbles in the slick that mark the […]

Apple Inc. carbon footprint rises despite green measures

20 April 2015 (NBC News) – Apple is more energy efficient than it ever has been, according to a new report, with 100 percent of U.S. operations running completely on renewable energy. Still, the company was responsible for 34.2 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in fiscal 2014 — the vast majority from manufacturing […]

Half of Vanuatu residents lack clean water, month after Cyclone Pam: UNICEF

By Magdalena Mis; Editing by Tim Pearce 22 April 2015 LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – More than 100,000 people in Vanuatu have no clean drinking water, a month after a monster cyclone struck the tiny Pacific nation, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday. Two thirds of the archipelago’s water and sanitation infrastructure […]

5 canards in Rep. Lamar Smith’s Earth Day editorial on global warming

25 April 2015 (Desdemona Despair) – The Wall Street Journal continues its long tradition of printing editorials that reject the findings of climate science. On Earth Day 2015, we were treated to Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, rolling out some old denialist chestnuts, to criticize proposed […]

Nevada’s Lake Mead hits record low water level after 14 years of severe drought

By Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Sandra Maler24 April 2015 (Reuters) – Nevada’s Lake Mead, the largest capacity reservoir in the United States, is on track to drop to its lowest water level in recorded history on Sunday as its source, the Colorado River, suffers from 14 years of severe drought, experts said on Friday. The […]

Prolonged exposure to air pollution linked to brain damage, new study finds – ‘Long-term exposure to air pollution showed harmful effects on the brain, even at low levels’

By Marilyn Malara 25 April 2015 BOSTON (UPI) – A new study confirms that long-term exposure to air pollution –even at low levels – can lead to brain damage that precedes other neurological disorders associated with old age. Investigator Elissa Wilker of the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the […]

California drought drives an ‘explosive,’ longer wildfire season – ‘Since 2000 we’ve been seeing larger and more damaging fires’

By Linda Carroll25 April 2015 (NBC News) – There was a time when fire season in California started around May and went through September. Now, thanks to a drought that’s stretching into its fourth year, the state seems to have become a year-round tinderbox. The long running drought has “created explosive fire conditions,” said Mike […]

Scientists convinced of tie between earthquakes and drilling – ‘The picture is very clear’

By Alicia Chang, Tim Talley, Donna Bryson, and Jon Fahey23 April 2015 LOS ANGELES (AP) – With the evidence coming in from one study after another, scientists are now more certain than ever that oil and gas drilling is causing hundreds upon hundreds of earthquakes across the U.S. So far, the quakes have been mostly […]

Graph of the Day: Trend in global average surface temperature, 1970-2014

By Tamino20 January 2015 (Open Mind) – Both NASA and NOAA report 2014 as the hottest year on record. Despite the new #1, neither the news itself nor the response to it has surprised me. The news that last year was so hot is certainly no surprise. The simple reason is that for the last […]

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