February 22, 2011 (AFP) — Fifty million “environmental refugees” will flood into the global north by 2020, fleeing food shortages sparked by climate change, experts warned at a major science conference that ended here Monday. “In 2020, the UN has projected that we will have 50 million environmental refugees,” Cristina Tirado, a professor at the […]
By Staff WritersDakar (AFP) Feb 11, 2011 Conservation organisation Greenpeace on Friday urged west African countries to combat illegal fishing and over-fishing in their waters, in a statement released at the World Social Forum in Senegal. “We must tirelessly engage with authorities to ensure that the problems of illegal fishing and over-fishing in west Africa […]
Madrid, Spain (SPX) Feb 03, 2011 – A study led by the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR) has studied precipitation trends in Spain’s 10 hydrological basins over the 1946 to 2005 period. The results show that precipitation has declined overall between the months of March and June, reducing the length of the rainy season. The rains […]
By JUSTIN GILLISPublished: January 24, 2011 Judging by the weather, the world seems to have flipped upside down. For two winters running, an Arctic chill has descended on Europe, burying that continent in snow and ice. Last year in the United States, historic blizzards afflicted the mid-Atlantic region. This winter the Deep South has endured […]
By Bagehot for The EconomistJan 13th 2011, 15:03 THERE is a lot of talk in the air, just now, about the madness of the European Union’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), and how its strict quota system forces British trawlermen to throw vast quantities of fish back into the sea, dead. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, a television chef […]
The first decade of the 2000s, or the years 2001–2010, was warmer than the preceding decades in the whole of Finland, even though 2010 was colder than the long-time average. According to the Finnish Meteorological Institute’s statistics, the first decade of the 2000s (2001–2010) was the warmest decade in the history of Finland’s temperature measurements, […]
Budapest (AFP) Dec 21, 2010 – A leading French environmental group warned Tuesday that October’s toxic mud spill in Hungary could cause long-term damage and called for a broad European effort to monitor its effects. “We are concerned for the mid- and long-term,” Charlotte Nithart, the director of the Robin des Bois (Robin Hood) environmental […]
PARIS (AFP) 30 December 2010 – Some 250 billion microscopic pieces of plastic are floating in the Mediterranean, creating a biological hazard that reverberates up the food chain, according to research supported by green campaigners. The estimate comes from French and Belgian marine biologists who analysed water samples taken in July off France, northern Italy […]
Here are 2010’s most-viewed stories on Desdemona. A few have had further developments since they were posted, and I’ve noted this where appropriate. Not surprisingly, the most popular event was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, with seven entries (that’s why this post is about the top twenty stories, instead of the top ten). Six of […]
ScienceDaily (Dec. 20, 2010) — The consequences of the current high levels of socio-economic activity on the extent of biological invasions will probably not be completely realized until decades into the future, according to new research. A new study on biological invasions based on extensive data of alien species from 10 taxonomic groups and 28 […]
