Australia's Bureau of Meteorology and scientific research organisation, CSIRO, have released their 8th biennial State of the Climate Report. The findings, based on analysis and collation of a range of local and international data sources continues to provide a stark picture of the advance of climate change and its impact on this country. In releasing the results in this report, the agencies advised that there is only around 7 years left to mitigate and manage greenhouse gas emissions otherwise temperature increases above 1.5C will occur. This warning like so many others, will need to feed into the United Nations COP 29 conference later this month. What is abundantly clear from all the reports on climate change across the world is that the timeline for substantial change cannot be 2050. Twenty five years away is too late and the revised target of 2030 is more aligned with the actual climate change data.
A summary of the report findings is listed -
Australia's climate has warmed by and average of 1.51 +/- 0.23 C since national records commenced in 1900
Sea surface temperature has increased by an average of 1.08 C since 1900
The warming has led to an increase in the freqauency of extreme heat events over land and in the oceans
In the south-west of Australia there has been a decrease of around 16% in April to October rainfall since 1970. Across the same region May to July rainfall has seen the largest reduction by around 20% since 1970
In the south-east of Australia, there has been a decrease of around 9% in April to October rainfall since 1994
Heavy short-term rainfall events are becoming more intense
There has been an increase in extreme fire weather and a longer fire season across large parts of the country since the 1950s
Snow depth, snow cover and number of snow days have decreased in alpine regions cince the late 1950s
Oceans around Australia are becoming more acidic with change happening faster in recent decades
Sea levels are rising around Australia including more frequent extreme high levels that increase the risk of inundation and damage to coastal infrastructure and communities.
The US election period is drawing to a close and polling day is almost here on November 5. As of today, 68.3 million people have already voted either in postal votes or in-person at early voting centres.
In Australia, most media-based commentators and political science analysts are increasingly of the view that a Trump victory is more likely, even by a small margin. This is entirely guesswork and despite a multitude of polls and interviews with voters, no clear picture can be established. A Trump victory would not be due to the merits of the Trump campaign itself and only partially (in a very small measure) the candidate himself. It has a lot to do with a range of factors as below:
The electoral college system: Within the US, the actual electoral college system favours the Republican Party with smaller states have a disproportionate weighting of value of votes. Some of these states have voted Republican far more than Democrat with occasional cross-over change for candidates such as Barack Obama, Bill Clinton or Joe Biden. A candidate can decisively win the overall vote in the US but lose by not gaining enough votes in smaller states and thus losing all the electoral college votes for that state.
Legacy policy impacts: immigration is a white-hot issue in the United States and one that was not resolved during the Biden period. Biden's action in rolling back Trump policies led to a large number of migrants crossing the US border illegally and still more gathering on the border with Mexico. Biden and the Democrats sought to remedy this situation through a bi-partisan border and national security bill in May 2024. The draft legislation had been agreed by both the Republican and Democrat parties but Trump intervened and directed the Republicans not to support the bill. As a result the issue was not resolved and the problem continued giving Trump additional political leverage.
In-built prejudices: Vice President Harris is both a woman and of migrant descent. There are well established prejudices in the US about her gender and race. Whether sufficient numbers of US voters can be galvanised to enable her to win the ballot thus overcoming this situation is yet to be determined. Within a number of the key eight swing states, gender and race influence voter perceptions and could prove a major stumbling block for Harris. Male Afro-American voters for example, have indicated support for Trump due to perceptions that he is a strong man. Trump's campaign team have run a hyper-masculine campaign underpinning this perception. In addition, Trump's campaign has focussed on the mantra of ''outrage" blaming other communities for problems, reminiscent of 1930s Germany and rallies held in that country at that time.
Economics of the US: a key impression amongst voters is that the US economy is going backwards and interest rates are still increasing. This is not true and the US central bank, the Fed, has been reducing interest rates as the US economy is quite strong with a stable jobs market. In October 2024, 12,000 new jobs were created. However for the average US voter, day-to-day life still seems unaffordable and increasingly costly. Trump has promoted a view of economic malaise and the loss of jobs due to other countries/globalisation in the US despite the converse being true and this campaign tactic has been successful to a large degree with his core voter support.
November 5, 2024 beckons.....
UPDATED on 5 November 2024
Voting has been been occuring on polling day in the US. Over 80 million voters have now voted in the pre-poll (postal and in person at voting centres). The election contest continues to be impossible to call between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald J Tump. There have been some surprising late poll data that came to light in Iowa which showed support for Harris increasing in an otherwise Republican State however whether this is replicated in the ballot box is yet to be determined.
October 31st each year is the celebration of Halloween, often characterised by costume parties, children doing 'trick or treat' visits in the neighbourhood (to collect candies and sweet treats), watching horror films, lighting bonfires (if environmentally viable), apple bobbing (more difficult that it appears), and carving pumpkins or turnips into lanterns to name a few activities. Associated with the supernatural and macabre, Halloween had moved far beyond its actual origin and taken on a more commercial theme.
Halloween derives from All Hallows Eve or All Saints Eve being celebrated in many countries in the Western Christian practice on the eve of All Hallows Day. This day in the liturgical year is dedicated to remember the dead and all the faithful departed. It could have been influenced by early Celtic harvest festivals or Gaelic spiritual festivals. The origins of Halloween are strongly connected to Scotland and Ireland where it has been celebrated for centuries. Scottish and Irish immigrants brought the tradition to North America in the 1800s from where it spread to other countries in the late 20th Century.
For the United States, Halloween also occurs during the election cycle and it could not be more apt for the 2024 election. It may be that Americans will wake one morning in November to find that they are again in a "Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue II". Only the ballot will decide this fate.
As of the current date, it's now 7 days to the election day (November 5) for the US President, the Houses of Congress and some governorships. Polls of all shapes and sizes have been taken to try and gauge the likely outcome and voter intentions. Some polls have shown the contest between Trump and Harris to be neck-to-neck, others have Harris leading by a single percentage point while still other polls have measured Trump as being marginally ahead. In professional betting platforms, Trump is more favoured than Harris and commentators of all persuasions have given their views about the candidates. It is not possible to predict the outcome is the reality at this moment in time.
36 states offer early voting and 40.7 millions Americans have cast their ballot in the pre-poll period whether through postal voting or in-person at voting centres. The Secretary of State for Georgia expects that 70% of ballots will be cast in that state before the actual polling day.
From outside of the United States, the contest is perceived as one that intrinsically is about more than the two candidates. It is also about the very viability of democratic functions and institutions in that country. Serious efforts have been made and continue to be made to control and manipulate elections by various measures such as limiting the locations where voters to actually vote, denying their right to vote through various rules of eligibility, trying to invalidate votes cast in methods such as postal voting to name a few. In this respect the ''Make America Great Again" (MAGA) version of the Republican Party is where attention has to remain focussed.
If you’ve ever gone to look up a quick fact and just kept browsing from one article (or page, or video), to another, to another – then you know the feeling of “going down a rabbit hole”. This experience of curiosity-led online wandering has become synonymous with the free, user-created encyclopedia Wikipedia.
In new research involving more than 480,000 Wikipedia users in 14 languages across 50 countries, US researchers led by Dale Zhou at the University of Pennsylvania studied three distinctly different ways of going down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. These “curiosity styles” have been studied before, but not in such a large, diverse group of people using Wikipedia “naturalistically”, in daily life.
The research may help us better understand the nature and importance of curiosity, its connections to wellbeing, and strategies for preventing the spread of false information.
Wikipedia: first controversial, now mature, always popular
When Wikipedia was new in the early 2000s, it sparked controversies. People such as librarians and lecturers voiced concerns about Wikipedia’s potential for platforming untrue or incomplete information.
Today, the factuality of Wikipedia’s existing contents is less concerning than questions of bias, such as which topics the site’s volunteer editors deem noteworthy enough to include. There are global efforts to fill gaps in Wikipedia’s coverage, such as “edit-a-thons” to add entries on historically overlooked scientists and artists.
Part of what made Wikipedia groundbreaking was how it satisfies people’s intrinsic learning needs by inviting navigation from page to page, luring readers into rabbit holes. This, combined with the site’s participatory approach to creating and verifying pages, sparked its rapid growth. These qualities have also sustained Wikipedia as a predominant everyday information source, globally.
This new study examines data about Wikipedia readers’ activities. It looks at the different “architectural styles of curiosity” people embody when they navigate.
Busybodys, hunters and dancers
The new study explores the “knowledge networks” associated with the three main styles of curiosity: busybody, hunter and dancer. A knowledge network is a visual representation of how readers “weave a thread” across Wikipedia articles.
As the researchers explain:
The busybody scouts for loose threads of novelty, the hunter pursues specific answers in a projectile path, and the dancer leaps in creative breaks with tradition across typically siloed areas of knowledge.
Earlier research had shown evidence of busybodies and hunters, and speculated about the existence of dancers. The new study confirms that busybodies and hunters exist in multiple countries and languages. It also details the dancer style, which has been more elusive to document.
The researchers also identified geographical differences between curiosity styles.
In all 14 languages studied, busybodies tend to read more about culture, media, food, art, philosophy and religion. Hunters in 12 out of 14 languages tend to read more about science, technology, engineering and maths.
In German and English, hunters were more drawn to pages about history and society than busybodies. The opposite was true in Arabic, Bengali, Hindi, Dutch and Chinese.
Dancers were identified by their forward leaps between disparate topics, as well as the diversity of their interests.
The research team points out we still have much to learn about how curiosity is shaped by local norms. Relating these results to gender, ethnicity, access to education, and other elements will paint a fuller picture.
Curiosity is beneficial, generally … and we have more to learn
Overall, this study supports the benefits of freer, broader browsing and reading. Following our curiosity can help us become better informed and expand our worldviews, creativity and relationships.
At the same time, people sometimes need closure more than they need exploration. This is not a bad thing or a sign of narrow-mindedness. In many situations there are benefits to moving on from information-seeking, and deciding we’ve learned enough for now.
Endless curiosity can have downsides. This is especially true when it’s motivated not by the joy of learning, but by the discomfort of uncertainty and exclusion. As other research has found, for some people, curiosity can lead toward false information and conspiracy theories. When information has a sense of novelty, or a hint of being hidden by powerful elites, this can make it more appealing, even when it’s not true.
The new study emphasises that different curiosity styles do not lead simply or universally to creativity or wellbeing. People’s contexts and circumstances vary.
Each of us, like Goldilocks, can follow our curiosity to find not too much, not too little, but the information that is “just right”. The researchers also hint at evidence for a spectrum of new curiosity styles beyond the main three, which will surely spark more research in future.
Stay curious and enjoy the rabbit hole
This study also suggests ways Wikipedia (and sites like it) could better support curiosity-driven exploration. For example, rather than suggesting pages based on their popularity or similarity to other pages, Wikipedia could try showing readers their own dynamic knowledge network.
As a Wikipedian would say, this new study is noteworthy. It shows how smaller-scale, exploratory research into people’s reading and browsing can be translated to a much larger scale across languages and cultures.
As AI becomes more influential and the problems of misinformation grow, understanding technologies that shape our access to information – and how we use them – is more important than ever. We know YouTube recommendations can be a radicalising pipeline to extremist content, for example, and ChatGPT is largely indifferent to the truth.
Studying Wikipedia readers reveals a rich picture of people’s freely expressed, diverse online curiosities. It shows an alternative to technologies built on narrower assumptions about what people value, how we learn, and how we want to explore online.
The State of the Climate Report 2024 from a consortium of scientists in mulitple institutions paints a grim picture for the direction of climate change with rising temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions. To quote an opening section of the report -
“We
are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster. This is a global
emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is
imperiled. We are stepping into a critical and unpredictable new phase of the
climate crisis. For many years, scientists, including a group of more than
15,000, have sounded the alarm about the impending dangers of climate change
driven by increasing greenhouse gas emissions and ecosystem change (Ripple et
al. 2020). For half a century, global warming
has been correctly predicted even before it was observed—and not only by
independent academic scientists but also by fossil fuel companies (Supran et
al. 2023). Despite these warnings, we are
still moving in the wrong direction; fossil fuel emissions have increased to an
all-time high, the 3 hottest days ever occurred in July of 2024.”
The graphs below from the report (figure 2) categorically demonstrate the upwards trends across a whole range of measures such as carbon dioxide emissions, methane emissions, nitrous oxide emissions, ocean heat, ocean levels and so on.
Tuesday 5 November 2024 is the formal election day for the US Presidential election with Kamala Harris (Democratic Party, current US Vice President) and Donald J Trump (Republican Party, former US president) as the contenders. At the same time, 34 Senate seats and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives in the US Congress are also being decided. There are also 12 gubernatorial elections taking place making it a particularly critical moment in the US voting cycle and potentially momentuous for the United States and the wider world.
The two contenders offer radically different perspectives on the United States with Harris reflective of the future and a positive, hopeful message. Trump in contrast has continued a long history of listing deficiencies, conspiracies and claims of one form of grievance or another. Trump has also been the subject of a range of prosecutions, a number of which are not resolved and others resulted in convictions. The contrast between the two candidates could not be more extreme yet despite this situation, Trump at this point could easily win the election. There are also concerns with the public opinion polling by various organisations including media companies, that Trump's support may be underestimated. Only the election results will show whether this is correct or not.
The US is one of the most partisan divided countries at present with the majority of states either voting/aligning with the Republicans or the Democrats leaving a small number of 8 states being termed the 'swing states'. These are -
Pennsylvania
Georgia
Nebraska District 2
North Carolina
Michigan
Arizona
Wisconsin
Nevada
The margins in these states are paper thin. The US election system also has a number of in-built deficiencies such as: voluntary voting (almost 40 % of eligible voters do not vote in the Presidential ballot and almost 50 % of eligible voters do not vote for the ballots for seats in Congress); different voting systems used in different states and subject to local political influence; no limits campaign funding and little control on the truthfulness or accuracy of claims made; an electoral college system where for most states, the candidate with the most ballot votes (a bare majority) is given all that State's electoral college votes (a winner-takes-all-approach) even where the winning candidate may not be supported by the majority of Americans on a country wide basis. The stakes could not be higher for the US and for the rest of the World.
