Paradoxes for our times / 6
November 18, 2016
A “no” in the Italian referendum would be the beginning of the end of the Euro
November 18, 2016The Italian referendum on 4th December is actually about the constitution. The intention with a yes vote would be to reduce the size and limit the power of the upper house to make it easier for governments to govern. But it is indirectly also a referendum on the Euro. While a “yes” vote would allow Matteo Renzi to continue as Prime Minister, and though it will be a great relief for the Eurocrats, it would be far from a ratification or an approval of the EU or the Euro. A “no” vote on the other hand would be a Brexit-like, hammer blow to the Euro and to the misguided concept of a Holy European Empire. I suspect it would be the beginning of the end of the Euro.
Though he is a big fan of the European Union, Barack Obama brings bad karma to it. …… His farewell visit is, if not a kiss of death, surely a bad omen for the EU and most immediately for one of those present in Berlin to bid him goodbye: Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, who has called an all–important referendum on constitutional reform for 4 December. If he loses, as looks ever more likely, it could cause a run on Italy’s sclerotic banks that could engulf the eurozone. ….
….. In essence, Renzi wants to curtail the powers of the upper house, the senate, and to cut the number of senators — who would no longer be elected, but appointed by regional governments — from 315 to 100. If he succeeds, his economic reforms should be easier to pass. ………
Grillo has dismissed the referendum question as ‘incomprensibile’. His movement and most of what remains of media tycoon Berlusconi’s party, Forza Italia, will vote ‘no’ in the referendum. So too will the right-wing populist Northern League party, which also wants Italy out of the euro and illegal immigrants out of Italy. On top of that will be a significant tranche of Renzi’s own party.
So this has become a referendum not just on constitutional reform but on Renzi — and if not on Italian membership of the EU, certainly on the euro. The Brexit vote, the triumph of Trump and the populist spring tide sweeping Europe are sure to convince many Italians to vote against Renzi.
The connection between a constitutional question (almost imcomprehensibly phrased) and the Euro is obscure but real.
Italy: Performance in the Eurozone (graphic via Forbes)
Forbes: Know this: The European Monetary Union does not work very well, if at all, without Italy. A “no” vote would be the death knell of the euro. …….
……… If he loses, Renzi has promised to step down—a pledge that has turned the referendum into a popular vote of confidence in the unelected prime minister, his Europhile policies, and—by extension—Italy’s membership of the eurozone itself. As a result, a “no” vote in October will not just precipitate the fall of Renzi’s government; it could throw Italy’s long-term membership of the eurozone into doubt, plunging the single currency area once again into crisis.
Italy’s fundamental problem is that it’s stuck in a policy no man’s land. Its old economic model, in place for much of the last three decades of the 20th century, relied on a combination of currency devaluation to maintain international competitiveness together with fiscal spending to support the poorer regions of the country’s south.
Signing up to the euro put an end to all that, preventing devaluations and prohibiting budget deficits at 10% of gross domestic product. However, the design of Italy’s bicameral parliamentary system, in which the upper and lower house—the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies—wield equal legislative power, made it almost impossible for any government to push through the structural reforms necessary for Italy to compete and prosper within the eurozone. The result has not just been depressed growth and relative impoverishment, but an outright decline in living standards as Italy’s real GDP per capita has slumped to a 20-year low.
Such a below-par economic performance has led to a build-up of bad assets on the balance sheets of Italy’s banks, where 18% of all loans are now classed as non-performing. In turn, this bad loan overhang has eroded the ability of the banking sector to extend new credit to the thousands of small businesses which are the engine of Italy’s economy and which normally power employment growth. The result is stagnation. ……..
………. All this means that the possibility of a “No” vote in Italy’s constitutional referendum ……. is the biggest clear and present danger to the euro’s survival. …… the only economic choice for Italy would be between continued stagnation, or a return to the old economic model of successive devaluations. The latter course would naturally mean exiting the eurozone anyway. ……..
…….. If Renzi wins ……. the eurozone has fresh hope. But if he fails, Italy fails—and very likely the eurozone fails too.
If Sarkozy wins centre-right primary, Marie Le Pen will be next President of France
November 16, 2016As with the US election, the French election will go to the one with the lower negatives (and bear in mind that Hillary Clinton did indeed have greater negatives where it counted than Donald Trump did).
Nicolas Sarkozy, beat Jean-Marie Le Pen to become president of France in 2007, and lost to Francois Hollande in 2012. He is now trying to win the centre-right primary election in November which would give him a strong chance of to become head of state again in May 2017.
But he begins to sound very much like Le Pen the father and may well meet Marie Le Pen who has broken away from her father to now be a not improbable candidate for President. Sarkozy (who, in my opinion, is about as trustworthy as Tony Blair’s pet snake) begins to sound remarkably like le Pen the father to try and take away Marine Le Pen’s base.
Le Pen versus Sarkozy? image The Telegraph
The Guardian:“War has been declared on us,” he told Valeurs Actuelles this month as he held court at the summer mansion of his singer-supermodel wife, Carla Bruni. “War. France must be merciless, it must push that fear over to the other side.” Sarkozy is putting forward a platform of hardline policies on French national identity, Islam, and security which veer even further to the far right than his hardline stance in 2012, when he set out to win over voters from Marine Le Pen’s Front National.
He wants to ban the Muslim headscarf from universities and public companies, limit the French nationality rights of children born of foreign parents, and ban pork-free options in school canteens so Muslim and Jewish children would no longer be offered a substitute meal.
There are 4 candidates in the primary race,
Alain Juppé, 71, is the centre-right mayor of Bordeaux and former prime minister under Jacques Chirac. Once detested for his attempted pension changes in 1995 and nicknamed “Amstrad” for his robotic efficiency and cold, grey image, he is now France’s favourite politician.
Nicolas Sarkozy, 61, is currently leader of the right’s Les Républicains party. He was French president from 2007 to 2012.
Bruno Le Maire, 47, was an agriculture minister during Sarkozy’s presidency. The Normandy MP has styled himself as the candidate for “renewal”, standing for a new, younger generation in a contest dominated by older candidates.
François Fillon, 62, was Sarkozy’s prime minister, but has since questioned Sarkozy’s style and policies. He is running on a pro-business reform agenda, promising to tackle France’s economic woes.
As in the US election Marie Le Pen and Sarkozy have high negatives:
73% of French people did not want Hollande re-elected next year and 66% did not want Sarkozy back in office, while 63% did not want Le Pen.
Even if Marie Le Pen’s chances are still small, who her opponent will be could become crucial. If Sarkozy wins the right to stand in the first leg by winning the centre-right primary and if he joins Marie Le Pen as one of the two left standing after the first round in April 2017, then I can see Marie Le Pen winning the second round. Between the two of them I suspect that Sarkozy will have the greater negatives.
Quartz: On the face of it, her chances would appear slim. Unlike in the US, the French electoral system is designed to only deliver a president who is endorsed by an absolute majority of the electorate. But Le Pen’s rival parties are in disorder, which could ease her path, unless the electorate can pull together. …….
There are two rounds of voting in the French presidential election set two weeks apart. In 2017, the first round will be on Sunday April 23, the second on Sunday May 7.
An unlimited number of candidates can stand in the first round, provided they gather a certain amount of support from local parliamentarians. If one of them achieves an absolute majority in the first round (50% plus one vote), then they are pronounced president. The fragmented nature of French politics means, however, that this has never happened since the system was set up in 1965. ……….There is every possibility that Le Pen will be ahead after the first round in April 2017 so the question is how much chance she has in the second round. ……
In the past, voters have united to prevent the far-right from winning the run off, but France’s other main parties are failing to offer new faces for voters—and recently we’ve seen all too well what can happen when the establishment fails to address the discontent of the people. They are also consumed by their own problems. The left appears to have collapsed, while right-wing voters are deeply divided about who their candidate should be. …….
Le Pen’s discourse of “the same old faces and the same old promises” has found some traction against this backdrop. With seven more-or-less familiar figures fighting it out, the contest hardly has the look of new blood about it. It doesn’t help that Sarkozy has various investigations hanging over his head and that Juppé was stripped of the right to stand for election or hold office for two years in 2004. …..
Voters on the left could probably see themselves voting for Juppé if he ended up in the second round with Le Pen but the same is not necessarily true in a Sarkozy/Le Pen contest.
If Sarkozy wins the centre-right primary, Marie Le Pen will be the next President of France. (And I would prefer a strident Marie to a slimy Nicolas).
Eggs on faces
November 14, 2016No comments needed.
When sanctimonious arrogance meets blind ignorance
November 13, 2016It is a potent mixture when sanctimonious arrogance meets blind ignorance. And it is difficult to get more sanctimonious than, or be as blind as, the HuffPo.
I note that they are still in denial about the result and are instigating mayhem and revolt.
From Paul Joseph Watson
Judith Curry’s guide to climate models
November 13, 2016Judith Curry’s guide to climate models.
Well worth reading.
Though written for lawyers, it might even be tough for many lawyers. However politicians should get their “science” aides to read, digest and summarise it for them (it would be far too ambitious to expect the politicians to be able to read so much, understand it or to digest so much in one go).
For me, the real issue with GCM’s is not that the modelling is done but that they are used for policy making. Assumed sensitivities are effectively used to fit the results for the immediate past. The forced fit is then taken as proof that the assumptions are true and are then projected into the future. The claimed objective of the resultant policies can neither be monitored nor measured.
Climate models for lawyers
by Judith Curry
I have been asked to write an Expert Report on climate models.
No, I can’t tell you the context for this request (at this time, anyways). But the audience is lawyers.
Here are the specific questions I have been asked to respond to:
- What is a Global Climate Model (GCM)?
- What is the reliability of climate models?
- What are the failings of climate models?
- Are GCM’s are a reliable tool for predicting climate change?
I’ve appended my draft Report below. I tried to avoid giving a ‘science lesson’, and focus on what climate models can and can’t do, focusing on policy relevant applications of climate models. I’ve tried write an essay that would be approved by most climate modelers; at the same time, it has to be understandable by lawyers. I would greatly appreciate your feedback on:
- whether you think lawyers will understand this
- whether the arguments I’ve made are the appropriate ones
- whether I’m missing anything
- anything that could be left out (its a bit long).
——–
What is a Global Climate Model (GCM)?
Global climate models (GCMs) simulate the Earth’s climate system, with modules that simulate the atmosphere, ocean, land surface, sea ice and glaciers. The atmospheric module simulates evolution of the winds, temperature, humidity and atmospheric pressure using complex mathematical equations that can only be solved using computers. These equations are based on fundamental physical principles, such as Newton’s Laws of Motion and the First Law of Thermodynamics.
GCMs also include mathematical equations describing the three-dimensional oceanic circulation, how it transports heat, and how the ocean exchanges heat and moisture with the atmosphere. Climate models include a land surface model that describes how vegetation, soil, and snow or ice cover exchange energy and moisture with the atmosphere. GCMs also include models of sea ice and glacier ice.
To solve these equations on a computer, GCMs divide the atmosphere, oceans, and land into a 3-dimensional grid system (see Figure 1). The equations and are then calculated for each cell in the grid repeatedly for successive time steps that march forward in time throughout the simulation period.
Figure 1. Schematic of a global climate model.
The number of cells in the grid system determines the model ‘resolution.’ Common resolutions for a GCM include a horizontal resolution of about 100-200 km, a vertical resolution of about 1 km, and a time stepping resolution that is typically about 30 minutes. While GCMs represent processes more realistically at higher resolution, the computing time required to do the calculations increases substantially at higher resolutions. The coarseness of the model resolution is driven by the available computer resources, and tradeoffs between model resolution, model complexity and the length and number of simulations to be conducted.
Because of the relatively coarse spatial and temporal resolutions of the models, there are many important processes that occur on scales that are smaller than the model resolution (such as clouds and rainfall; see inset in Figure 1). These subgrid-scale processes are represented using ‘parameterizations.’ Parameterizations of subgrid-scale processes are simple formulas based on observations or derivations from more detailed process models. These parameterizations are ‘calibrated’ or ‘tuned’ so that the climate models perform adequately when compared with historical observations.
The actual equations used in the GCM computer codes are only approximations of the physical processes that occur in the climate system. While some of these approximations are highly accurate, others are unavoidably crude. This is because the real processes they represent are either poorly understood or too complex to include in the model given the constraints of the computer system. Of the processes that are most important for climate change, parameterizations related to clouds and precipitation remain the most challenging, and are the greatest source of disagreement among different GCMs.
GCMs are used for the following purposes:
- Simulation of present and past climate states to understand planetary energetics and other complex interactions
- Numerical experiments to understand how the climate system works. Sensitivity experiments are used to turn off, constrain or enhance certain physical processes or external forcings (e.g. CO2, volcanoes, solar output) to see how the system responds.
- Understanding the causes of past climate variability and change (e.g. how much of the change can be attributed to human causes such as CO2, versus natural causes such as solar variations, volcanic eruptions, and slow circulations in the ocean).
- Simulation of future climate states, from decades to centuries, e.g. simulations of future climate states under different emissions scenarios.
- Prediction and attribution of the statistics extreme weather events (e.g. heat waves, droughts, hurricanes)
- Projections of future regional climate variations to support decision making related adaptation to climate change
- Guidance for emissions reduction policies
- Projections of future risks of black swan events (e.g. climate surprises)
The specific objectives of a GCM vary with purpose of the simulation. Generally, when simulating the past climate using a GCM, the objective is to correctly simulate the spatial variation of climate conditions in some average sense. When predicting future climate, the aim is not to simulate conditions in the climate system on any particular day, but to simulate conditions over a longer period—typically decades or more—in such a way that the statistics of the simulated climate will match the statistics of the actual future climate.
There are more than 20 climate modeling groups internationally, that contribute climate model simulations to the IPCC Assessment Reports. Further, many of the individual climate modeling groups contribute simulations from multiple different models. Why are there so many different climate models? Is it possible to pick a ‘best’ climate model?
There are literally thousands of different choices made in the construction of a climate model (e.g. resolution, complexity of the submodels, parameterizations). Each different set of choices produces a different model having different sensitivities. Further, different modeling groups have different focal interests, e.g. long paleoclimate simulations, details of ocean circulations, nuances of the interactions between aerosol particles and clouds, the carbon cycle. These different interests focus computational resources on a particular aspect of simulating the climate system, at the expense of others.
Is it possible to select a ‘best’ model? Well, several models generally show a poorer performance overall when compared with observations. However, the best model depends on how you define ‘best’, and no single model is the best at everything. The more germane issue is to assess model’s ‘fitness for purpose’, which is addressed in Sections 2-4.
The reliability of climate models ……
Idiotic “gender-equal” snow clearance (!) has been a fiasco in Stockholm
November 13, 2016The price for politically correct idiocy has to be paid. A year ago the Red/green coalition that rules Stockholm city introduced what they called “gender-equal snow clearance”. With the first, early, albeit heavy, snowfall of November the clearance system was a fiasco as it degenerated into a farce.
(The Red/Green coalition is notorious for its lack of common sense and known for a very warped sense of right and wrong. They inevitably prioritise what is wrong. They believe victims of crime have only themselves to blame and that criminals are victims. They believe that returning jihadists from Iraq and Syria need to be cared for and treated for the trauma of having killed so many others. They believe that biology can be legislated away).
But even after the fiasco (and I experienced it myself when a journey which normally took a little over 2 hours, took over 3 going and about 5 hours returning), the only real change will be a new report. In my opinion and from what I experienced the snow clearing was extremely careless but more importantly, was incompetent. It was the unevenness of the clearance, followed by freezing, which created vicious pot-holes. Driving through Stockholm last Thursday reminded me of driving along the pot-hole strewn death-trap from Calcutta to Durgapur just after the monsoons.
When winter comes, the roads have generally been plowed first, but last winter Stockholm introduced something called “gender-equal” snow removal in the city. It meant that the bike paths, sidewalks and roads with heavy public transport have been given priority.
But when the snow struck Stockholm earlier this week the new snow removal was a flop. Vice Mayor of Stockholm, Daniel Helldén (MP), is self-critical. In an interview with the Daily News, he admits that pedestrian and bicycle paths have not been cleared as intended.“I have requested an emergency report to know what has happened these past few days. If it failed somewhere and we’ll correct it. With this report, we hope to be able to do it better next time,” he told DN.
Daniel Helldén is ultimately responsible for the snow removal work and he regrets that many were stuck on the roads or in public transport and could not get through.
“I will do my utmost so that we do not have to experience this kind of chaos again. Large snowstorms always means trouble. But it should not be like it was now,” he says.
Foto: Pär Brandt/auto motor & sport
The media’s sanctimonious self-righteousness contributed to Trump’s victory
November 11, 2016It should be fairly obvious that I am not overly impressed by the main-stream (mainly liberal) media in the US. It is my contention that their blindness to the anti-establishment wave that was abroad, and then their sanctimonious stupidity, was no small contributor to the anger against the perceived establishment.
Now the analysis starts.
But some few liberals do see – at least in hindsight – what I thought I saw back in May.
Maybe it’s time to consider whether there’s something about shrill self-righteousness, shouted from a position of high social status, that turns people away.
This is Thomas Frank in The Guardian: (my bold)
Clinton’s supporters among the media didn’t help much, either. It always struck me as strange that such an unpopular candidate enjoyed such robust and unanimous endorsements from the editorial and opinion pages of the nation’s papers, but it was the quality of the media’s enthusiasm that really harmed her. With the same arguments repeated over and over, two or three times a day, with nuance and contrary views all deleted, the act of opening the newspaper started to feel like tuning in to a Cold War propaganda station. Here’s what it consisted of:
- Hillary was virtually without flaws. She was a peerless leader clad in saintly white, a super-lawyer, a caring benefactor of women and children, a warrior for social justice.
- Her scandals weren’t real.
- The economy was doing well / America was already great.
- Working-class people weren’t supporting Trump.
- And if they were, it was only because they were botched humans. Racism was the only conceivable reason for lining up with the Republican candidate.
How did the journalists’ crusade fail? The fourth estate came together in an unprecedented professional consensus. They chose insulting the other side over trying to understand what motivated them. They transformed opinion writing into a vehicle for high moral boasting. What could possibly have gone wrong with such an approach?
Image from Truth Feed
Highest level of November snow in Stockholm for 111 years
November 9, 2016Dagens Nyheter is one of the most “politically correct” newspapers in Sweden. It believes – not in mono-cultural, multi-ethnicity (which works) – but in fractured multi-culturalist societies (which don’t). It believes people should get what they desire and not what they deserve.
And it believes in the religion of global warming being due to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide.
No doubt the record snowfall in Stockholm will also prove “global warming”.
snow in Stockholm 9th November 2016 — photo TT (via DN)
The worst snowfalls in Stockholm in 111 years.
It has not snowed in Stockholm this early in the winter since SMHI statistics started in 1905.“It’s about record levels, which, on Thursday morning, will be official”, says Stina Kihlgren, meteorologist at SMHI. A formal measurement of snow depth is made only once a day in Stockholm, 07:00 each morning at the Observatory. When Stockholm woke up on Wednesday ,SMHI measured 21 centimeters of snow. At midday there was an unofficial listing that showed 30 centimeters. “And then the snow continued to fall. It has been between 30 and 40 centimeters in total. The probability is very high that there will be a new record”, says Stina Kihlgren.
She refers to the measured snow depth in Stockholm in November, where the previous peak was in 1985 at 29 centimeters. “The snow has fallen for several days, it has been very intense.”
But not to worry. As global temperature numbers continue to be fiddled with new algorithms every year, the snow will, no doubt, disappear.
Part 2 of “Why Trump couldn’t win but did”
November 9, 2016It is deja vu.
It is not that I am expert enough to have predicted a Trump victory. But in May this year when Trump won the Republican nomination I posted:
I have made this point before. Attacking Trump head on only fuels his anti-establishment support. It is only by occupying the ground he occupies that some of his support can be captured.
Attacking Trump – from any direction – only seems to strengthen his support. That suggests that his support is coming from those who feel that their fears are completely unrepresented by any of the other candidates. The 2016 election is dominated, I think, by the avoidance of worst fears and not by the meeting of aspirations. It could well be that nobody will be able to take away from Trump’s support unless they can articulate the same disdain for establishment politics and political correctness that he does and address the worst fears that exist.
The current headlines in the US media are now about how and why Clinton will trounce Trump. It all sounds exactly like the reasons given over the last year for why Trump couldn’t win the Republican nomination. Some of it – especially in the left leaning media – HuffingtonPost, Slate, Politico and Washington Post – are more like wishful thinking rather than analysis. They have not learned from their past mistakes and still haven’t understood the strength of the anti-establishment wave. Bernie Sanders is the only other candidate from either party who has begun to understand the mood abroad. To take away the “politically incorrect” territory from Donald Trump may be beyond Hillary Clinton.
My prediction for November is that Clinton support is more likely to collapse than that Trump’s campaign will implode. And therefore I will not be at all surprised at a very close run election and even if Trump wins.
And from the results it is pretty clear that the entire main stream media missed it and are still missing it. They are also still missing the point that they have themselves contributed to the resentment and anger that the Trump voters have now demonstrated with stunning effect. They (WaPo, HuffPo, LATimes, BostonGlobe, Politico, CNN and even the NYT) have been living in their own little bubble of virtuosity and sanctimonious blather that their vituperative attacks on Trump have been entirely counter-productive and have only cemented his support. Looking at the editorials today, they are still living in their bubble. They are still in denial about their own role in their own defeat. They have imbued political correctness with such a halo that Trump supporters have been invisible to the pollsters. Election models have been discredited soundly.
(As I have written elsewhere, election models are like climate models. They
- have pre-determined outcomes,
- are based on data manipulation,
- are biased to protect the “establishment”, and
- just plain wrong.)
I don’t expect even Trump the buffoon to be all bad. There are many silver linings to his dark cloud. But one thing is sure. President Trump is, at least partly, a reaction to Obama’s failures. His failure to let the US economy to be the engine for global growth, his failure to curb profligacy in government, his failure with Obamacare and his many failures with foreign policy. To that extent it is Obama’s fears of action which have enabled Donald Trump.
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