Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Report: 15 percent of Americans on food stamps

By Jeff Cox, cnbc.com 5 September 2012 The number of Americans on food stamps hit a record high in June, and economists don’t expect much improvement as long as unemployment remains high. Those receiving benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program numbered 46.37 million, the government announced in a report that hit just days ahead […]

Natural disasters in North Korea trigger widespread food shortage – ‘Definitely people are dying. How many is the big question’

By Ben Blanchard, Reuters31 August 2012 North Korea could be heading toward a crisis similar to the 1990s when a million people are thought to have died after a series of natural disasters brought widespread famine, said an aid worker, just back from a tour of the impoverished state. North Korea has suffered heavy floods […]

Humor: Bill Nye on Christian conservatives: ‘I caused a hurricane by challenging creationism? Who can possibly take these people seriously anymore?’

[Note: This is satire.] 30 August 2012 (Daily Currant) – Bill Nye may still be The Science Guy, but he’s no longer Mr. Nice Guy. During a live interview this morning with the Smithsonian Channel, the mild mannered science educator unloaded on U.S. Congressman Todd Akin, calling him “a fucking idiot” for accusing Nye of […]

Graph of the Day: Cumulative mass balance for Himalaya glaciers, 1975-2010

Above, Cumulative mass balance for 11 glaciers in 2006–2010 (Supplementary Table S6 and Figs S3–S13). Below, Cumulative mass balance for the three longest time series of glacier mass-balance measurements along transect 1 (Supplementary Table S7 and Figs S14 and S15). ABSTRACT: The Tibetan Plateau and surroundings contain the largest number of glaciers outside the polar […]

Brazil’s Belo Monte back on track after court decision overruled

29 August 2012 (mongabay.com) – Brazil’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered work on the controversial Belo Monte dam in the Amazon to resume, overturning a lower court order that suspended the project less than two weeks ago. Construction activities by the Norte Energia, the consortium building the dam, resumed immediately, according to the Associated Press. […]

British summer 2012 ‘wettest in 100 years’, Met Office figures show

30 August 2012 (BBC) – This summer is set to be the second wettest in the UK since records began – and the wettest summer in 100 years – provisional Met Office figures suggest. The wettest summer – defined as June, July and August – since national records began was in 1912. Figures up until […]

Image of the Day: Satellite view of glacier retreat on Puncak Jaya, 1989 and 2009

Glaciers on Puncak Jaya, 1989   Glaciers on Puncak Jaya, 2009 Caption by Adam Voiland, with information from Michael Prentice, Lonnie Thompson, and Andrew Klein 1 September 2012 Tropical and glacier don’t seem like words that belong in the same sentence. But mountain peaks near the equator in South America, Africa, and tropical Asia have […]

North Korea says Typhoon Bolaven ‘brought big damage’, left 48 dead, displaced more than 20,000

3 September 2012 (BBC) – Typhoon Bolaven has killed 48 people in North Korea and left more than 50 others injured or missing, state-run KCNA news agency reports. The typhoon “brought big damage” to North Korea and displaced more than 20,000 people, it said. Hundreds of trees were felled and power cut. The North was […]

Zoos carefully introduce discussions of climate change

By LESLIE KAUFMAN26 August 2012 BOSTON – Sitting on an artificial mangrove island in the middle of the ray and shark “touch tank,” Lindsay Jordan, a staff member at the New England Aquarium, explained the rays’ eating habits as children and their parents trailed fingers through the water. “Does anyone know how we touch these […]

‘Sunshade’ to fight climate change costed at $5 billion a year

[cf. So the leaders of men conceived of their most desperate strategy yet] By Alister Doyle and David Fogarty; editing by Andrew Roche30 August 2012 OSLO/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Planes or airships could carry sun-dimming materials high into the atmosphere for an affordable price tag of below $5 billion a year as a way to slow […]

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