This is worrying.
Sydney's abnormally warm autumn will extend well into May, with unusually dry conditions inland creating late-season heat records across large parts of Australia in play.
The city has had just two days this months with maximums below the long-term average of 22.4 degrees, and most days in the coming week will be several degrees warmer than that.
With a warm start to May, temperatures will creep up to the mid-20s early next week – 30 degrees is possible in western suburbs.
"We're still missing the significant cold fronts that are normally due this time of the year," said Brett Dutschke, senior meteorologist with Weatherzone.There's already a big pile of worrisome things to do with Global Warming so adding this on to the list of evidence is no big addition, but that in of itself is a worry because it means we've become inured to the ever growing pile of evidence indicating anthropogenic climate change is happening.
Overpopulation And Depopulation
Here's something interesting from Zero Hedge. It's a rare article that isn't screaming imminent doom. No, the doom is a bit further off in this article:
Strangely, the world is suffering from two seemingly opposite trends...overpopulation and depopulation in concert. The overpopulation is due to the increased longevity of elderly lifespans vs. depopulation of young populations due to collapsing birthrates. The depopulation is among most under 25yr old populations (except Africa) and among many under 45yr old populations.
So, the old are living decades longer than a generation ago but their adult children are having far fewer children. The economics of this is a complete game changer and is unlike any time previously in the history of mankind. None of the models ever accounted for a shrinking young population absent income, savings, or job opportunity vs. massive growth in the old with a vast majority reliant on government programs in their generally underfunded retirements (apart from a minority of retirees who are wildly "overfunded"). There are literally hundreds of reasons for the longer lifespans and lower birthrates...but that's for another day. This is simply a look at what is and what is likely to be absent a goal-seeked happy ending.
In a short yet economically valid manner, every person is a unit of consumption. The greater the number of people and the greater the purchasing power, the greater the growth in consumption. So, if one wanted to gauge economic growth, (growth in consumption driving economic growth), multiply the annual change in population by purchasing power (wages, savings) per capita. Regarding wage growth, I hold wages flat as from a consumption standpoint, wage growth is basically offset by inflation. Of course, there is another lever beyond this which central banks are feverishly torqueing; substituting the lower interest rates of ZIRP and NIRP to boost consumption from a flagging base of population growth. (There is one more boost to consumption, huge increases in social transfer payments primarily among the advanced economies...but while noted, these are a story for another day.)
Anyway, it has interesting graphs and the details make for interesting reading.
We're Getting French Submarines!
In a turn for the more interesting, the Coalition Government decided to go with the French submarine tender.
The commitment to a local build shores up the government's political prospects in South Australia, which were looking shaky amid concerns work could be sent offshore. MPs including senior frontbencher Christopher Pyne faced losing their seats if the Coalition broke a pre-election pledge to build all 12 boats in Adelaide.
But the choice of France is causing ripples with rival bidder Japan, which branded the decision "deeply regrettable" and issued a please explain.
I don't know what to make of all this.
From an Australian point of view, the government got what it wanted - 12 subs, built in Adelaide, with somebody else's tech. As an essential part of the decision, by picking the French, it stays out of China's bad books - which is spineless whichever way you look at it.
From the Japanese point of view, it looks weird because Tony Abbott came bounding in wanting to buy the subs, only to be replaced by Malcolm who put it out to competitive tender instead and chose somebody else. It's a bit more mixed because there are voices in Tokyo that didn't want to sell the tech at all, and they'll now look like the more responsible voices. After all, with allies like these, how needs enemies, they'll argue.
In a weird way, it's good that Australia picked the French because it really means we don't want to fight China, and it's good for Japan to know that Australia can't be relied on for much if it came to a shooting war with China. That being said the Americans will provide the weapons systems for interoperability. They've indicated the French subs are not as good as the Japanese 'Soryu' class subs so they'll be a bit unhappy that Australia deliberately opted to go with the French.
I guess the downside of this 'process' is that Australia was going to piss off two countries either way, but three countries if it picked Japan's tender. Based on this decision it seems Canberra and Tokyo are never really going to see eye to eye about mutual security, and that's bad (as in, I'm not going to write it's "not good" because it's worse than that, it's bad). Malcolm Turnbull was making noises about Japan still being a strategic partner but it's hard to see how he's going to make that statement stick right after he showed that the partnership didn't mean all that much to his government.
You'd sure hate to be the Australian Ambassador to Japan tonight, trying to explain how the hell a surefire sale turned into a tender and a swing-and-a-miss. There's no spinning "fuck you."
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