Drought and Climate change

Right on time here is an article examining this topic.
drought-and-climate-change-were-the-kindling-and-now-the-east-coast-is-ablaze.

Those who have direct experience have no doubt of this relationship.

Indeed they were very prescient!

This is very passionate.
Steve from Brisbane

As an added bonus direct from No Hesitations
frbsf-on-climate-change

The ALP loss and the last election

On Friday we had the report on why the ALP lost.

I am amazed people can be sooo confident of this when ALL the polls failed so badly.
So:

• The Pollbludger
• Frank Bongornio
• The Kouk

On the polling:

• Andrew Gelman
• when-prediction-markets-fail    related

Around the Traps 8/11/19

It is time again for Around the Traps

Aussie,Aussie,Aussie,Oy,Oy,Oy

• Andy Stewart et al on are-the-wallabies-struggles-a-sign-of-rugby-unions-decline-in-australia
• Oscar Serrano et al on australias-hidden-opportunity-to-cut-carbon-emissions-and-make-money-in-the-process
• Carol Johnson on is-the-morrison-government-authoritarian-populist-with-a-punitive-bent
• Joseph Ibrahim om the-aged-care-royal-commissions-3-areas-of-immediate-action-are-worthy-but-wont-fix-a-broken-system
• Peter Martin on we-asked-13-economists-how-to-fix-things-all-back-the-rba-governor-over-the-treasurer
• renew economy on south-australia-had-lowest-cost-of-supply-in-main-grid-in-october, solar-farms-warned-of-worsening-network-losses-in-nsw-victoria, south-australias-stunning-renewable-energy-transition-and-what-comes-next, australias-main-grid-reaches-50-per-cent-renewables-for-first-time
• Kirus Hiruy et al on asylum-seekers-left-desperate-and-helpless-when-they-try-to-find-work-in-australia
• Rachael Wakefield-Chann on recycling-plastic-bottles-is-good-but-reusing-them-is-better
• Graeme Orr on scott-morrison-wants-to-outlaw-boycott-campaigns-but-the-mining-industry-doesnt-need-protection
• Greg Jericho on all-the-government-spin-in-the-world-doesnt-put-more-money-in-peoples-bank-accounts, the-price-of-lamb-has-soared-200-since-the-90s-now-the-drought-is-sending-it-even-higher
• Melissa Conley on australia-is-spending-less-on-diplomacy-than-ever-before-and-its-influence-is-suffering-as-a-result
• Ross Garnaut on australia-could-fall-apart-under-climate-change-but-theres-a-way-to-avoid-it, three-policies-will-set-australia-on-a-path-to-100-renewable-energy
• Croaking Cassandra on officials-in-pursuit-of-more-powers, long-term-fiscal-choices
• Ross Gittins on mental-health-smart-way-to-increase
• John Williams on governments-seem-intent-on-trashing-john-howards-legacy-when-it-comes-to-water-reforms
• Institutional economics on the-treasurer-should-not-let-the-treasurer-off-the-hook
• Lin Crase on australias-drought-relief-package-hits-the-political-spot-but-misses-the-bigger-point
• Zoe Rathus on parental-alienation-the-debunked-theory-that-women-lie-about-violence-is-still-used-in-court

Northern America

• Robert Waldmann on it-would-not-be-safe-for-democrats-to-play-it-safe
• New Deal Democrat on october-jobs-report-paints-a-portrait-of-a-full-or-nearly-full-employment-economy
• Livio De Matteo on rising-health-spending-is-not-just-about-seniors
• Menzie Chinn on gross-vs-net-investment-pre-and-post-tcja
• Nate Silver on the-state-of-the-polls-2019
• FRBSF on is-rising-concentration-hampering-productivity-growth
• David Graham on more-we-learn-worse-it-looks-trump
• John Cassidy on trumps-own-donor-diplomat-blows-up-his-impeachment-defense
• Nathaniel Rakisch and Jeffrey Skelley on democrats-score-election-victories-in-virginia-and-probably-kentucky
• Clare Malone on the-7-ways-impeachment-could-shape-the-2020-election

Europe

• Mainly Macro on tactical-voting-advice-for-december-2019, libdem-fantasies-about-december-election
• stumbling and mumbling on the-rights-mega-rich-problem
• Donna Wet Brett on policing-the-berlin-wall-the-ghostly-photos-taken-by-the-stasis-hidden-cameras
• Notes on Liberty on the-myth-of-the-nazi-war-machine
• Matt Fitzpatrick on thirty-years-after-the-berlin-wall-came-down-germany-is-still-working-to-meet-east-with-west

Asia

• Jieh-Yung Lo on hong-kong-future
• Ian Hall on ndia-s-clever-alliances-island-states
• Barkley Rosser on the-aramco-ipo-stumbles-out-door
• Elliot Zangman on beijing-s-cryptic-blockchain-gambit
• Adnan Aamir on uncertain-fate-islamic-state-pakistan

Wonk

• Johan Lidberg on twitter-is-banning-political-ads-but-the-real-battle-for-democracy-is-with-facebook-and-google
• and Then Theres Physics on journalistic-norms-for-bloggers
• Open Mind on sea-level-pca-from-the-baltic-sea-to-el-nino
• Tim Harford on minimumwage
• John Quiggin on what-if-anything-is-neoliberalism
• Croaking Cassandra on 2019-vs-1969
• the conversable economist on some-thoughts-about-populism, flexible-vs-deep-what-are-ties-that-bind-a-firm-together, the-roundup-case-problems
• stumbling and mumbling on shoring-up-capitalism
• Jeffrey Wilson on india-s-rcep-exit-setback-not-disaster
• Peter Galbraith on betrayal-of-the-kurds
• Nick Rowe on boiling-frogs-slow-recoveries-are-deep-recoveries

General

• Nick Gruen on pedantry-is-not-its-own-reward
• Andrew Blakers on curious-kids-how-do-solar-panels-work
• Paulo De Sousa on climate-explained-why-mars-is-cold-despite-an-atmosphere-of-mostly-carbon-dioxide
• Peter Monteath on friday-essay-a-short-sharp-history-of-the-bayonet

Climate

• David Appell on ocean-heat-content-and-lost-island
• moyhu on october-ncepncar-global-surface-anomaly-up-from-september, october-global-surface-templs-up-0096C-from-september
• Thomas Newsonw and William Ripple on 11-000-scientists-warn-climate-change-isnt-just-about-temperature
• Essays concerning on do-tipping-points-mean-runaway-global-warming-after-12-years
• Fiona Hibbert et al on scientists-looked-at-sea-levels-125-000-years-in-the-past-the-results-are-terrifying
• real climate on sensitive-but-unclassified
• tamino on sea-level-align-the-aligned
• and Then Theres Physics on depolarising-the-debate

Andrew Gelman ( mainly stats)

• the-dropout-rate-in-his-survey-is-over-60-what-should-he-do-i-suggest-mrp
• how-to-teach-sensible-elementary-statistics-to-lower-division-undergraduates
• the-paper-has-been-blind-peer-reviewed-and-published-in-a-highly-reputable-journal-which-is-the-gold-standard-in-scientific-corroboration-thus-all-protocol-was-followed-to-the-letter-and-the-work
• filling-emptying-the-half-empty-full-glass-of-profitable-science-different-views-on-banning-or-retaining-thresholds-for-statistical-significance
• the-incentives-are-all-wrong-causal-inference-edition
• have-prices-have-risen-more-quickly-for-people-at-the-bottom-of-the-income-distribution-than-for-those-at-the-top-lefty-window-breakers-wait-impatiently-while-economists-struggle-to-resolve-this-dis
• the-shadow-in-the-garden-by-james-atlas
• battle-for-the-headline-hype-and-the-effect-of-statistical-significance-on-the-ability-of-journalists-to-engage-in-critical-thinking
• Kaiser Fung on what-is-net-neutrality-and-why-im-staying-neutral

Genial Dave Giles ( econometrics)

• Freakometrics on rethinking accountability and causation

Dianne Coyle ( quirky + book reviews)

• nuttin

vox wonk

• mobile-internet-government-confidence-and-populism
• pragmatism-long-term-vision-should-prevail-euro-reform
• civil-rights-and-fertility-choice-us
• central-banks-and-sterilisation-capital-flows-first-era-globalisation
• impact-us-china-trade-war-japanese-multinationals
• automation-and-its-enemies
• liquidity-linkages-european-sovereign-bond-markets-can-amplify-fundamental-economic-shocks
• mobilisation-effects-multilateral-development-banks
• anchored-or-de-anchored-question
• waterbed-effects-macroprudential-policies
• east-asian-value-chains-exchange-rates-and-regional-exchange-rate-arrangements
• digital-euro-save-emu
• 20-years-european-economic-and-monetary-union-selected-takeaways-ecb-s-sintra-forum
• chaebols-and-firm-dynamics-republic-korea
• return-to-protectionism
• overcoming-contractual-incompleteness-role-guiding-principles
• challenging-path-ahead-commission-s-autumn-2019-forecast
• early-20th-century-american-exceptionalism
• impact-negative-interest-rates-banks-and-firms

A few points on the UK election

This is the first election in Winter in the UK since 1023.
It is cold, dark and rainy in the UK in winter. This might mean less people turn out to vote. It should affect old people more than young people and the referendum showed older voters were more likely to be in favour of Brexit..All in all it takes a brave man or woman to predict the winner of the election.

The other major issue is both the major parties have leaders who are unelectable.
Corbyn appears to think he is in 1946 in terms of his policies.
Johnson appears to be a Trump lite in terms of blatantly lying and work ethic.

If I was a pom I would vote for the Liberal Democrats..

There is no such thing as pay equality in sport

The absurd new deal the Matildas have gotten leads me to a politically incorrect assertion.

In sport, as opposed to the office, there is male sport and female sport.Please note if equality was here there would be no male or female sport just sport. The reason there is obvious. Females cannot compete with males.
Take the Matildas. they had a practice game against a team of teenagers some years ago and were THRASHED!
Female football  players simply do not have the balance or skill of their male counterparts.  In cricket the female spinners bowl pies and no female seems to be able to bowl side on thus they cannot swing the ball as l;ate or as much as their male counterparts. Please not they never ever have a speed gun on the female 'fast' bowlers. Why? Because they are not fast.

Let us go further. I know of no sport where attendances or TV ratings are as high for female sports as it is for male sports.
Again take the Matildas against the Socceroos. They play in stadiums mostly well away from the major cities in an attempt to make the crowds seem larger.

Let us take tennis. Females get as much money as males yet they only play against females. play less sets and have much lower ratings.

Let us face it.There is simply no such thing as equal pay in sport for females because they do not do EQUAL work.

Morrison contemplating silly laws

If we are to believe Scott Morrison the government is gong to ensure people who protest about environmental matters come under the secondary boycott provisions of the law.

Graeme Orr says the Mining industry doesn't need protection. I agree with him.

Just imagine I get involved in a demonstration against an imaginary financial institution that will provide fiance to Adani. It is imaginary because none want to.

Under this possible legislation I could be prosecuted for simply demonstrating ( pun intended) my democratic right. Yes that is how stupid it is. This is more evidence for Carol Johnson's thought on is-the-morrison-government-authoritarian-populist-with-a-punitive-bent.

Worrisome in the extreme.

Andrew Gelman unloads on climate models

Steve from Brisbane last week had a number of articles of how climate models have problems.

Well Andrew Gelman has joined this chorus.

Read the whole thing but quite some time ago he utterly demolished Richard Tol on this subject. He is utterly bewildered to d find William Nordhaus using Tol's techniques in his well known paper.

This all raises important questions for global warming. Most importantly have we been underestimating the costs of gobal warming