WASHINGTON, 22 April 2013 (The Onion) – After nearly a decade of promises that the nation was on the brink of a technological, economic, and scientific golden age, citizens across the country confirmed Monday they are now realizing a bold new era of American innovation is just flat-out not gonna happen. Citing the fragile economy […]
By Will Oremus 22 April 2013 (Slate) – Environmentalists like to think that the public is in their corner—that it’s only the pernicious influence of Big Oil and Big Coal that keeps Congress from passing a carbon tax or Obama from nixing the Keystone Pipeline. They’re right that most voters care about the planet, insofar […]
[“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Democracy simply doesn’t work.” – Kent Brockman] By Natalie Wolchover, Life’s Little Mysteries Staff Writer28 February 2012 (LiveScience) – The democratic process relies on the assumption that citizens (the majority of them, at least) can recognize the best political candidate, or best policy idea, when they […]
Washington, 28 February 2013 (ANI) – Pessimism about the future may lead to longer and healthier life, researchers have suggested. According to a new study [pdf], older people who have low expectations for a satisfying future may be more likely to live longer, healthier lives than those who see brighter days ahead. “Our findings revealed […]
In 2012, “the new normal” is how observers from Christiane Amanpour to The Onion characterized the various forms of extreme weather that wrought havoc around the globe. This is a practical definition of “climate change”, and Dr. James Hansen showed clearly what this means quantitatively: Graph of the Day: Shifting Distribution of Global Temperature Anomalies, […]
Desdemona was busy over the holidays and is happy to report that the Desdemona Despair app is live in the Windows Store. If you’d like a convenient way to get fresh doom updates on your desktop, install Windows 8 and then search for “Desdemona Despair” in the store. Desdemona Despair app for Windows in the […]
At some point, the pace of doom will overtake this blog’s capacity to document it. In 2012, Desdemona came pretty close to this threshold, as a burst of extreme weather events battered civilization and illustrated the nature of abrupt climate change to the most obdurate of nation states. “The new normal” is how observers from […]
At some point, the pace of doom will overtake this blog’s capacity to document it. In 2012, Desdemona came pretty close to this threshold, as a burst of extreme weather events battered civilization and illustrated the nature of abrupt climate change to the most obdurate of nation states. “The new normal” is how observers from […]
In 2011, Desdemona experienced déjà vu while collecting doom-laden images, but not so this year. Doom has begun to have a certain characteristic look: the record flooding looks the same, whether it’s in the Philippines or Nigeria; spiderwebs coat the flooded landscape in Pakistan and Australia alike. Mega-fires in Siberia and the U.S. West produce […]
Once again, it’s time for the yearly doom retrospectives, and as usual we’re kicking them off with 2012’s most-viewed stories on Desdemona. There were no appalling technogenic disasters in 2012, like Fukushima or the Deepwater Horizon – but Chevron’s K.S. Endeavor rig fire came close – and no story clearly dominated the year’s coverage. Over […]
