Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

90 percent of oil palm plantations came at expense of forest in Kalimantan

By Jeremy Hance8 October 2012 (mongabay.com) – From 1990 to 2010 almost all palm oil expansion in Kalimantan came at the expense of forest cover, according to the most detailed look yet at the oil palm industry in the Indonesian state, published in Nature: Climate Change. Palm oil plantations now cover 31,640 square kilometers of […]

Graph of the Day: Electronic Eavesdropping Authorizations by the U.S. Justice Department, 2004-2011

By Naomi Gilens, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project 27 September 2012 Justice Department documents released today by the ACLU reveal that federal law enforcement agencies are increasingly monitoring Americans’ electronic communications, and doing so without warrants, sufficient oversight, or meaningful accountability. The documents, handed over by the government only after months of litigation, are […]

World’s glaciers have new size estimate

By Becky Oskin, OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer23 October 2012 (LiveScience.com) – The relatively small glaciers that drape the planet’s mountains will play an important role in future sea level rise, according to a new study that estimated glaciers’ collective size. Researchers calculated the ice thickness for 171,000 glaciers worldwide, excluding the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, which […]

Impoverished Niger creates fund to fight desert spread

NIAMEY, 23 October 2012 (Reuters) – Niger said on Monday it will launch a $110 million project to counter the impact of rapid expansion of deserts and increasingly unpredictable rains in one of the world’s poorest countries. “The programme aims to test strategies that will help us integrate climate risk and adapt climate change into […]

Wiping out species decreases resilience to climate change

24 October 2012 (PhysOrg) – It is tragic whenever any species is lost. Now it appears that the impact of species loss is far-reaching, much more than previously thought. The symbiotic relationships that develop in the environment as a result of high biodiversity make ecosystems more resilient to change. The loss of a species can […]

Dead Sea’s record loss grows with potash makers demand

By Gwen Ackerman 23 October 2012 The Dead Sea is shrinking at a record rate, prompting calls for Israel and Jordan to stop fertilizer makers from siphoning so much of the water whose restorative powers have attracted visitors since biblical times. The salty inland lake bordering the nations dropped a record 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) […]

U.S. downplayed effect of Deepwater Horizon oil spill on whales, emails reveal

By Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, www.guardian.co.uk24 October 2012 The images from the summer of 2010 were undoubtedly gruesome: the carcass of a young sperm whale, decayed and partially eaten by sharks, sighted at sea south of the Deepwater Horizon oil well. It was the first confirmed sighting of a dead whale since the BP […]

Australia’s Antarctic airstrip melts

By Jonathan Pearlman24 October 2012 Sydney (The Telegraph) – Researchers said global warming has caused the glacial ice on the runway to turn to mush just four years after it was built for about £30 million. It was due to receive about 20 flights each summer but only six have been able to land in […]

South Africa hits another new record in rhino killings – Two rhino subspecies declared extinct

By Jeremy Hance18 October 2012 (mongabay.com) – Four hundred and fifty-five rhinos have been killed by poachers in South Africa since the beginning of the year. The number surpasses the record set last year (448) and proves that national efforts to stem poaching have not yet made a dent in actual killings. The mass killing […]

Online advertisers know you better than you think

By Sarah Wenger, MBAOnline.com22 October 2012 Online advertisers know you better than you think Technorati Tags: propaganda

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