Quick takes and random stuff March 28, 2924
Happiness gap, hydro and natural gas, gender differences, Ozzy, and more
Graph of the week
This is from Global warming and heat extremes to enhance inflationary pressures (3/21/204) and is self-explanatory.
Caption:
Maps of the pressure on annual national inflation in the food (a) and headline (b) price aggregates from the average weather conditions expected by 2035 under a high-emission scenario (SSP585) as estimated from the projections of CMIP-6 climate models. The annual pressure on inflation aggregated across world regions (population weighted), at different time periods under both a low (SSP126) and high (SSP585) emission scenario for food (c) and headline (d) price aggregates. Point estimates show the average, and error bars the standard deviation, of impacts as projected across the ensemble of 21 CMIP-6 climate models. Impacts are estimated accounting only for increasing average temperatures using the baseline empirical specification shown in column 1 of Supplementary Tables S4 & S5. Estimates reflect the exogenous pressure on inflation arising from future weather conditions in the absence of historically un-precedented adaptation, policy response, and abstracting from any possible interactions with macroeconomic developments (see text for discussion). Data on national administrative boundaries are obtained from the GADM database version 3.6 (https://gadm.org/ ).
Germany’s demographic problems
This is both an interesting and terrible graph from the IMF Germany’s Real Challenges are Aging, Underinvestment, and Too Much Red Tape (3/27/2024).
If you read the note at the bottom, the graph represents a change in growth rate. The working-age population could still be going up, but just slower, and the -0.65 doesn’t seem all that bad, even if it is more negative than the other countries. Here is a graph from the United Nations Population Division that makes the point better.
Notice how the working-age population as a percentage of the overall population drops from about 64% in 2023 to 58% in 2035. This graph gives a clearer picture of what the IMF is trying to represent. Still, their point holds and is a problem facing many countries:
Germany’s working-age population has been buoyed over the last decade by migrants escaping regional conflicts. As this migrant wave ends and baby boomers retire over the next five years, the growth rate of Germany’s labor force will drop by more than in any other G7 country. This will put downward pressure on GDP per person because there will be fewer workers for each retiree. It will also lead to a combination of higher social security contributions and lower pensions, absent reforms. And a more elderly population will increase demand for healthcare services, drawing workers away from other industries. Labor shortages could also deter investment.
Hydropower down, natural gas up
Two graphs from the EIA (3/26/204 and 3/27/2024).
According to preliminary data from our Electricity Data Browser, the least hydropower was generated in the western United States during the 2022–23 water year (October 1 through September 30) since at least 2001. Western region hydropower generation dropped by 11% from the previous water year to 141.6 million megawatthours (MWh). Hydropower generation in the western United States can vary significantly from year to year because the amount of precipitation influences generation.
U.S. natural gas production grew by 4% in 2023, or 5.0 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), to average 125.0 Bcf/d, according to our Natural Gas Monthly.
This doesn’t suggest that cutting CO2 emissions is going well. What we do see is that we hear a lot about the intermittency of solar and wind and forget that hydropower also varies due to precipitation variations.
Maybe kids have something to learn from us old folk
I take these happiness measurements with a grain of salt, but they do provide some interesting comparisons. The World Happiness 2024 report has the U.S. ranked as 23 with a 95% confidence interval of 17 to 29.
The interesting part is that for those under 30 in the U.S., the ranking is 62, while for those 60 and older, the ranking is 10. That seems like a really big gap that needs an explanation.
Data center report
This is a small one but will still consume plenty of electricity. (DCD 3/26/2024)
A data center is being proposed in the Hillside area of Chicago, Illinois.
As reported by the Village Free Press, Hillside’s Planning and Zoning Board of Appeals last week unanimously approved proposals to develop a data center on vacant land next to a car showroom.
DPK Hillside, LLC is proposing to build a two-story, 245,000-square-foot (22,760 sqm) data center at 101 N. Wolf Rd. on a 13-acre plot of land west of the Hillside CarMax.
From the gardens
Hellebores this week.
One country, two worlds
I’m generally concerned about how different Republicans and Democrats see the world, and I doubt one side is always correct and the other is always wrong. One example comes from Gallup (3/18/2024). I don’t have anything insightful to say here; maybe both sides need to get out of their own echo chambers.
Gender differences
This is another graph from Gallup from the article The Path to Gender Parity in Leadership (3/8/2024). Note that the assumption of the article is that their should be gender parity, yet they don’t seem to recognize that their own data says that men and women have different priorities, and there is nothing wrong with that.
If you have two candidates to choose from, one male and one female, all things being equal, I’m likely to choose the male. Why? because they are more likely to be available outside of regular working hours and not become discouraged by 50-hour work weeks. Are men making smarter decisions here? Good questions.
The article goes on to make suggestions to help reach parity, such as “Clarify criteria for determining ‘leadership potential’ ” and “Hold leaders accountable for developing the next generation,” but if women are less likely to want to put in the crazy hours, then how does this help exactly?
Another suggestion is this:
Flex to meet the needs of high-performing employees. Women rank “greater work-life balance and better personal wellbeing” as the factor they find most important when considering taking another job -- even surpassing a significant improvement in pay or benefits. Establishing flexible and hybrid work policies enables women to balance the often conflicting but mutually valued responsibilities of work and life.
It seems to me that high-level leadership positions are going to demand more time, and I’m not sure how much of that could be cut back. Maybe Gallup should find out before making this suggestion, and maybe not everything has to have 50-50 representation. It isn’t as if we see lots of articles from Gallup about gender parity in college (STEM, yes, but not college overall), parity in health care, or parity in elementary school teaching. It is almost as if one type of disparity is okay and another is not.
The spinning CD
Who would have thought that Ozzy would still be recording today?
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