Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Big Dry pressures New Zealand farmers – ‘I have farmed on the West Coast for the best part of 25 years and been in the industry all my life, and this is the biggest event in terms of a summer dry I’ve seen’

By Ben Aulakh22 March 2013 (The Westport News) – A West Coast farming expert says he is seeing first-hand the pressures being put on farmers battling to combat the effects of the big dry. CRT technical feed specialist for the West Coast, Tasman and Marlborough, Andrew Mitchell said he’d seen a significant increase in demand […]

Graph of the Day: Global average surface temperature, 20,000 BC-present, with projection to 2100

[Also see Tamino’s analysis: Global Temperature Change — the Big Picture] By Jos Hagelaars19 March 2013 The big picture (or as some call it: the Wheelchair): Global average temperature since the last ice age (20,000 BC) up to the not-too distant future (2100) under a middle-of-the-road emission scenario. Earlier this month an article was published […]

Robots have failed Fukushima Daiichi and Japan – ‘For all of Japan’s high-tech prowess, none of those lauded humanoid helpers were any good at all’

By Michael Fitzpatrick20 March 2013 (FORTUNE) – Two years since a shudder in the Earth’s crust devastated Japan, the country’s scientists and engineers are still attempting to develop technologies to make Fukushima safe from radiation. But progress has been slow and—because of institutional failings—more advanced technologies have not been available to workers at the sire. […]

Unwanted electronic gear rising in toxic piles – ‘Lots of smaller recyclers are in over their heads, and the risk that they might abandon their stockpiles is very real’

By IAN URBINA18 March 2013      (The New York Times) – Last year, two inspectors from California’s hazardous waste agency were visiting an electronics recycling company near Fresno for a routine review of paperwork when they came across a warehouse the size of a football field, packed with tens of thousands of old computer monitors and […]

In drought ravaged U.S. plains, efforts to save a vital aquifer

By Jim Malewitz, Staff Writer 18 March 2013 (Stateline) – Threatened by another summer of crop-shriveling drought, Kansans are watching a bold experiment unfold in Sheridan County, population 2,556, a sliver of the state’s northwest corner. On lands dominated by agriculture, locals have agreed to across-the-board cuts to water use. The state of Kansas didn’t […]

Video: Reggie Watts tallies the price of carbon pollution

13 March 2013  (Climate Reality Project) – Narrated by Reggie Watts. We are all paying the price of carbon pollution. It’s time to put a price on carbon and make the polluters stop the carbon destruction. The Price of Carbon Technorati Tags: carbon dioxide,carbon,global warming,climate change,coal,oil production,corruption,pollution

Sharks win endangered species protection – ‘The smell of corruption and underhand deals around the halls was foul, and it was everywhere’

By Gary Stokes, Coordinator, Sea Shepherd Hong Kong18 March 2013 BANGKOK (Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) – The room erupts in cheers and applause as the result of the vote is announced, the Oceanic white tip shark is now safely listed on the CITES Appendix II. Shortly followed by the three Hammerheads, the Porbeagle Shark and […]

Transocean chief admits crew shortcomings in Gulf oil spill – ‘Every day, I ask myself if there isn’t something more I could have done’

By Clifford Krauss19 March 2013 NEW ORLEANS (The New York Times) – The chief executive of the company that owned the Deepwater Horizon oil rig acknowledged in court on Tuesday that his crew should have done more to avert the 2010 oil well blowout that left 11 dead and soiled hundreds of miles of beaches […]

Total cost of Iraq invasion and occupation estimated at $6 trillion – Study finds costs of U.S. wars linger for over 100 years

By Tasneem Raja19 March 2013 (Mother Jones) – Ten years later, the Bush administration’s projected price tag for the war in Iraq seems downright cute. According to the first-ever comprehensive count of the true toll of the combined wars, the estimate the administration used to sell the invasion in 2003 was about 100 times too […]

The myth of ‘shock and awe’: why the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a disaster

[Desdemona can think of another reason why the invasion and occupation were disastrous: If the U.S. had instead poured trillions of dollars into upgrading its energy-production infrastructure to renewables, we wouldn’t need to invade oil-producing nations ever again.] By Richard Sanders19 March 2013 (Daily Telegraph) – The lead unit of the US Marine Corps arrived […]

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