Desdemona Despair

Blogging the End of the World™

Chevron rig fire damage hits Nigeria shores

By Ejiofor Alike7 February 2012 The damage caused by the fire on KS Endeavour, a drilling rig operated by FODE Drilling Nigeria Limited for Chevron Nigeria Limited on Funiwa Field in Block 86 in Bayelsa State has hit the coastal communities, polluting water and the environment. KS Endeavor was drilling a natural gas exploration well, […]

Australia urges residents to flee record floods

7 February 2012 (CNN) – Australian authorities on Monday pleaded with hundreds of people who had chosen to remain in a town in the path of rising flood waters to vacate their homes. The level of the Balonne River in the town of St. George, in the eastern state of Queensland, swelled to 13.63 meters […]

Video: Japan exclusion zone’s lone resident – ‘I’m completely contaminated’

[As always, apologies for the ad.] One man refuses to leave his home in Japan’s mandatory evacuation zone near Fukushima. CNN’s Kyung Lah reports. Japan exclusion zone’s lone resident Technorati Tags: Fukushima,Japan,Asia,infrastructure failure,pollution

Dead fish, health problems emerge as Chevron rig off Nigeria continues to burn after accident

LAGOS, Nigeria, 6 February 2012 (AP) – The burning inferno of what used to be a Chevron Corp. natural gas rig, the K.S. Endeavor, still stains the night’s sky orange more than two weeks after the rig caught fire, and no one can say when it will end as swarms of dead fish surface. The […]

Plastic bags are poisoning Earth’s greatest predators: Sperm whales are being killed by human pollution

By Philip Hoare4 February 2012 It has the biggest brain of any animal — a massive 18lb to our human 3lb — yet we really have no idea what it does with it. This magnificent predator — at 65ft long, the greatest that has ever existed — spends 90 per cent of its life in […]

Graph of the Day: Projected Overall Capital Investment Gap for U.S. Water Infrastructure, 2010-2040

For drinking-water, wastewater, and storm water, this figure presents past and projected spending (blue bars) and the capital gap that is likely to occur should future spending follow this path. … [T]he overall capital gap for water infrastructure—which includes drinking-water, wastewater, and wet weather—is already significant: $54.8 billion in 2010. If spending increases at the […]

Burt Rutan: Rocketeer, climate science denier

[Desdemona admits to being very disappointed in Burt Rutan. Des was raised on Golden Age science fiction (“R is for Rocket”), and has nursed the romantic illusion that space exploration might somehow prevent humans from destroying Earth – maybe by moving industry off-world and mining asteroids, or something. But here we have an accomplished aerospace […]

Video: Pirate Fishing in Sierra Leone

2 February 2012 (Al Jazeera) – The precious marine resources of some of the world’s poorest people are being targeted by industrial-scale pirate fishing operations, to feed the seafood hungry markets of Europe and Asia. The problem is particularly acute in West African waters where fish is a vital – and often the only – […]

NOAA lists five Atlantic sturgeon populations under Endangered Species Act

31 January 2012 (NOAA) – NOAA’s Fisheries Service announced today a final decision to list five distinct population segments of Atlantic sturgeon under the Endangered Species Act. The Chesapeake Bay, New York Bight, Carolina, and South Atlantic populations of Atlantic sturgeon will be listed as endangered, while the Gulf of Maine population will be listed […]

Bill Gates backs climate scientists lobbying for large-scale geoengineering

[Longtime readers know how Desdemona feels about most of these geo-engineering schemes: So the leaders of men conceived of their most desperate strategy yet.] By John Vidal, environment editor, The Guardian5 February 2012 A small group of leading climate scientists, financially supported by billionaires including Bill Gates, are lobbying governments and international bodies to back […]

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