Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Drought expands throughout U.S.

By Doyle Rice, USA TODAY13 April 2012 The USA hasn’t been this dry in almost five years. Still reeling from last year’s devastating drought that led to at least $10 billion in agricultural losses across Texas and the South, the nation is enduring another unusually parched year. A mostly dry, mild winter has put nearly […]

Graph of the Day: Rate of Sea-Level Rise Around Australia, 1993-2011

The rate of sea-level rise around Australia as measured by coastal tide gauges (circles) and satellite observations (contours) from January 1993 to December 2011. CSIRO / BOM Rates of sea-level rise are not uniform around the globe and vary from year to year. Since 1993, the rates of sea-level rise to the north and northwest […]

Study links rising Pacific seas to climate change

SYDNEY, 13 April 2012 (AFP) – Sea levels in the southwest Pacific started rising drastically in the 1880s, with a notable peak in the 1990s thought to be linked to human-induced climate change, according to a new study. The research, which examined sediment core samples taken from salt marshes in southern Australia’s Tasmania island, used […]

U.S. worry about water, air pollution at historic lows – Concern about global warming dead last

[Gallup attributes this grim trend to the 2008 global financial collapse and a general increase in optimism on the environment. Gallup neglects the effect of the relentless propaganda and lobbying campaign waged by the fossil fuel industry.] By Jeffrey M. Jones13 April 2012 PRINCETON, NJ – Americans currently express record-low concern about both air pollution […]

Graph of the Day: Growth in World Oil Supplies, 1983-2011

By Gail the Actuary12 April 2012 The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently released full-year 2011 world oil production data. In this post, I would like show some graphs of recent data, and provide some views as to where this leads with respect to future production. The fitted line in Figure 1 suggests a “normal” […]

Are dolphins doomed? They’re certainly taking a hit

By Tim Wall9 April 2012 Several mass deaths of dolphins have occurred over the past few years and while experts are worried about the die-off they say we are not witnessing a global population crash. But what is behind the recent mass strandings and deaths is complicated and, inevitably, involves humans. For example, the bottlenose […]

Climate change helps then quickly stunts plant growth, decade-long study shows

9 April 2012 (NAU) – Global warming may initially make the grass greener, but not for long, according to new research conducted at Northern Arizona University. The study, published this week in Nature Climate Change, shows that plants may thrive in the early stages of a warming environment but begin to deteriorate quickly. “We were […]

Threat of pole-and-line tuna shortage tackled

By Lewis Smith4 April 2012 An organisation has been set up to ensure the growing demand for tuna caught by pole and line can be met without damaging fish numbers. Pole and line caught tuna is increasingly in demand by consumers – chiefly in the UK, Northern Europe Australasia, Japan and North America – because […]

New science reveals agriculture’s true impact on climate

By Tom Laskawy10 April 2012 When I examined the reasons agriculture often gets a pass in climate negotiations recently, I pointed to the fact that precise measurement of the climate impact of many industrial farming practices remains difficult and controversial. This is especially true when it comes to synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. The effect of excess […]

Bluefin tuna: What’s to be done?

By DAVID JOLLY9 April 2012 The other day, a ninth-grade student e-mailed me to ask about the plight of the bluefin tuna. What, he wanted to know, should the government be doing to help keep those endangered fish alive? As a journalist with an interest in marine conservation, I’ve written extensively on the (mostly unsuccessful) […]

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