Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Human population may peak in 2070 and decline to extinction in the next few centuries

By Jeff Wise 9 January 2013 The world’s seemingly relentless march toward overpopulation achieved a notable milestone in 2012: Somewhere on the planet, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the 7 billionth living person came into existence. Lucky No. 7,000,000,000 probably celebrated his or her birthday sometime in March and added to a population that’s […]

Met Office hits back at ‘inaccuracies’ in James Delingpole article on climate science

By David Batty 10 January 2013 (guardian.co.uk) – The Met Office has hit back at claims that it conceded there is no evidence for global warming and that its weather forecasts are inaccurate. The forecaster has published a blog detailing an alleged “series of factual inaccuracies about the Met Office and its science” made in […]

Heat, flood, or icy cold, extreme weather rages worldwide

By SARAH LYALL10 January 2013 WORCESTER, England (The New York Times) – Britons may remember 2012 as the year the weather spun off its rails in a chaotic concoction of drought, deluge and flooding, but the unpredictability of it all turns out to have been all too predictable: Around the world, extreme has become the […]

Kansas City Star: The costly ignorance of climate change

10 January 2013 (The Kansas City Star) – The overwhelming number of scientists who believe in climate change scored another “victory” in 2012. Unfortunately, because of timid political leadership in the United States and around the world, the war against global warming is still being lost. Scientists have long warned that man-made greenhouse gases are […]

Image of the Day: Nighttime satellite view of North Dakota gas flares

By Brian Bowen, bowen@ceres.org, 617-247-0700×14810 January 2013 Boston, Massachusetts (Ceres.org) – The rapid growth in domestic oil production has set the United States on track to become the world’s top oil producer by 2015, but investors are wary of the environmentally damaging practices associated with that growth, specifically the burning off—or flaring—of natural gas that […]

Pythons, lionfish, and now willow invade Florida waterways

8 January 2013 (University of Central Florida) – Foreign invaders such as pythons and lionfish are not the only threats to Florida’s natural habitat. The native Carolina Willow is also starting to strangle portions of the St. Johns River. Biologists at the University of Central Florida recently completed a study that shows this slender tree […]

Bushfires drive Tasmania family into the sea – ‘Arguably the most significant heat wave in Australia’s history’

By Luke Harding 9 January 2013 (guardian.co.uk) – The tornadoes of fire came from two directions. They quickly engulfed the small Tasmanian fishing town of Dunally, and swept towards the home where Tim and Tammy Holmes were babysitting their five grandchildren. There was no escape. No way out. And so the family did the only […]

Invading species can extinguish native plants despite recent reports – ‘These species are slowly going extinct’

Contact: Benjamin Gilbert, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 416-978-4065  (office), 647-778-0900  (cell) benjamin.gilbert@utoronto.ca TORONTO, ONTARIO (University of Toronto) – Ecologists at the University of Toronto and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) have found that, given time, invading exotic plants will likely eliminate native plants growing in the […]

Carcinogen levels soar in Canada’s tar sand lakes

By Andy Coghlan9 January 2013 Canada’s push to exploit oil-rich sandy rock formations is certainly controversial, but does it pose a health threat? A first analysis has found an increase in carcinogens in sediment from lakes near to the Athabasca oil sands in Alberta but it is not yet clear if the pollution could make […]

Ant study deepens concern about plastic additives – ‘Phthlates are everywhere in the atmosphere’

By DAVID JOLLY7 January 2013 PARIS (The New York Times) – About five years ago, Alain Lenoir, a researcher at François Rabelais University in Tours, France, was studying the biochemical process by which ants differentiate between friends and foes. Scientists had come to understand that the insects used their antennae to sense the makeup of […]

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