Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Great Barrier Reef coral seeing ‘major decline’ – Starfish moving ‘in massive waves down the Reef like a plague’

By Miguel Llanos, NBC News1 October 2012 Calling it the most extensive review of how coral on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is faring, scientists on Monday reported some alarming news: The amount of coral covering reefs there has been cut in half since 1985 and will likely continue to decline unless steps are taken to […]

City of Miami Beach gets rising seas sticker shock – ‘We need to be making an escape plan for 2.5 million residents’

By Paul Brinkmann, with additional reporting by Oscar Pedro Musibay10 August 2012 (South Florida Business Journal) – The city of Miami Beach is vetting a $200 million storm water concept that is one of the first in the nation to respond to sea level rise resulting from global warming. As part of the process, global […]

Weapons of mass urban destruction: Automobiles in China

BY PETER CALTHORPE SEPT/OCT 2012 (Foreign Policy) – In the last five years, China has built 20,000 miles of expressways, finishing the construction of 12 national highways a whopping 13 years ahead of schedule and at a pace four times faster than the United States built its interstate highway system. Over the last decade, Shanghai […]

Global warming links U.S. Democrats, Independents, and isolates Romney

By Mark Drajem30 September 2012 Democrats and independent voters overwhelmingly accept the scientific evidence that human activity is warming the earth’s temperature, while almost two out of three Republicans don’t. Among likely voters, 78 percent of Democrats and 56 percent of independents believe humans are warming the earth, according to a Bloomberg National Poll. That […]

Graph of the Day: Wildfire Season Length in the U.S. West, 1970-2011

During the past 40 years, wildfires have started earlier in the year and have continued to burn later in the year, lengthening the overall “burn season.” This figure illustrates the start date of the first wildfire each year on USFS land and the start date of the last recorded fire. The inset shows how the […]

Huge clean-up begins after record storms batter Britain, 2 months after government climate advisers issued warning on inadequate defences

28 September 2012 (ITV) – Hundreds of homeowners are facing a massive clean-up today after record storms battered Britain. Across the North, householders have been reclaiming their homes, which insures estimate will cost an average of about £20,000 per household. Daybreak’s Katy Fawcett reports from York. Residents of a block of townhouses in Newburn, Newcastle, […]

Ocean acidification emerges as new climate threat

By Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post 29 September 2012 HOMER, Alaska – Kris Holderied, who directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Kasitsna Bay Laboratory, says the ocean’s increasing acidity is “the reason fishermen stop me in the grocery store.” “They say, ‘You’re with the NOAA lab, what are you doing on ocean acidification?’ ” Holderied […]

Over 450 dead, 4.5 million people hit in Pakistan floods

By Arslan Sharif 01 October 2012 Islamabad – At least over 450 people are reported to be dead and another 4.5 million are said to be affected by floods caused by monsoon rains in Pakistan this summer, especially in the south, said the National Disaster Management (NDMA) on Friday. Floods this year began in early […]

Typhoon Jelawat leaves two dead in Japan during record rainfall

TOKYO, Oct. 1 (UPI) – Typhoon Jelawat has begun to weaken over Japan after authorities said flooding left two people dead and threatened thousands of others with evacuation. At noon local time Monday, the storm was 56 miles east southeast of Nemuro on the northern island of Hokkaido, moving at 46 mph with winds of […]

How organized crime is destroying the rainforests

By Sara Reardon and Rowan Hooper 1 October 2012 It’s not as glamorous as chercocaine or diamonds, but the illegal logging industry has become very attractive to criminal organisations over the past decade. A new report finds that up to 90 per cent of tropical deforestation can be attributed to organised crime, which controls up […]

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