Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Arctic Ocean ‘acidifying rapidly’ – ‘Even if we stop emissions now, acidification will last tens of thousands of years. It is a very big experiment.’

By Roger Harrabin, Environment analyst6 May 2013 (BBC) – The Arctic seas are being made rapidly more acidic by carbon-dioxide emissions, according to a new report. Scientists from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) monitored widespread changes in ocean chemistry in the region. They say even if CO2 emissions stopped now, it would take […]

Mekong region has lost a third of its forests in 30 years, may lose another third by 2030

3 May 2013 (mongabay.com) – The Greater Mekong region of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand and Vietnam will lose a third of its remaining forest cover by 2030 unless regional governments improve management of natural resources and transition toward a greener growth model, warns a new report issued by WWF. The report lays out two […]

UK energy secretary urges education secretary to reinstate climate change on curriculum

By Patrick Wintour2 May 2013 (The Guardian) – Ed Davey, the energy secretary, has written a private letter to Michael Gove, the education secretary, urging him to rethink his plans to downgrade climate change in the new national curriculum. Amid protests from environmentalists and some students, Gove has removed debate about climate change from the […]

Plans to harness Chinese river’s power threaten a region – ‘Why can’t China have just one river that isn’t destroyed by humans?’

By ANDREW JACOBS4 May 2013 BINGZHONGLUO, China (The New York Times) – From its crystalline beginnings as a rivulet seeping from a glacier on the Tibetan Himalayas to its broad, muddy amble through the jungles of Myanmar, the Nu River is one of Asia’s wildest waterways, its 1,700-mile course unimpeded as it rolls toward the […]

World’s most widely used insecticide is devastating dragonflies, snails, and other water-based species

By Damian Carrington    1 May 2013 (The Guardian) – The world’s most widely used insecticide is devastating dragonflies, snails and other water-based species, a groundbreaking Dutch study has revealed. On Monday, the insecticide and two others were banned for two years from use on some crops across the European Union, due to the risk posed […]

Study: When U.S. Republicans understand climate science, they support climate action

By John Upton3 May 2013 (Grist) – Republican voters are told over and over by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and GOP leaders in Congress that climate change is a sham, a scare campaign orchestrated by scientists with liberal agendas. Ergo, Republicans are less likely than others to believe that fossil-fuel burning is changing the climate. […]

Tribesmen launch ‘occupy’ protest at dam site in the Amazon rainforest – 231 dams planned for the Brazilian Amazon

3 May 2013 (mongabay.com) – On Thursday roughly 200 indigenous people launched an occupation of a key construction site for the controversial Belo Monte dam in the Brazilian Amazon. The protestors, who represent communities that will be affected by the massive dam, are demanding immediate suspension of all work on hydroelectric projects on the Xingu, […]

NASA study projects warming-driven changes in global rainfall – ‘All the models agree in a very fundamental way: projecting more heavy rain, less moderate rain events, and prolonged droughts’

Contact: Steve Cole Headquarters, Washington 202-358-0918 stephen.e.cole@nasa.gov    Kathryn Hansen Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. 301-286-1046 kathryn.h.hansen@nasa.gov 3 May 2013 WASHINGTON (NASA) – A NASA-led modeling study provides new evidence that global warming may increase the risk for extreme rainfall and drought. The study shows for the first time how rising carbon dioxide concentrations […]

‘Long, hot, incendiary summer’: Early wildfires bode ill for California – ‘An event like this … it hasn’t happened in my career’

By Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer, NBC News4 May 2013 (NBC News) – Record-setting temperatures, erratic winds and a parched landscape spell a dangerous fire season for California, experts said on Friday as firefighters fought to control several large blazes of a kind that usually would not raise thick plumes of smoke over the horizon until […]

Extreme weather is making Americans climate-change believers, study finds – Survey shows ‘a trend where American Republicans are showing greater concern about climate change’

  By William Marsden 3 May 2013 WASHINGTON (Postmedia News) – A year of strange and often devastating weather that included extreme hurricanes, drought and wildfires appears to have increased the number of Americans who want government action on climate change, a new study shows. Unfortunately, researchers say, this higher level of global-warming awareness is […]

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