Climate related Deaths in Australia - Heat deaths increasing, but Cold deaths reducing

My favourite ABS release, Causes of death, was released today with 2018 figures. Always like having a look at what kills us.

Anyway, with all this talk of Climate emergencies and extinction events or the like, it is always interesting if we are seeing any of that in the figures.

Well, as you might expect, not really. Death rates over the last 20 years have actually reduced from 757 deaths per 100,000 in 1997 to 507.9 deaths per 100,000 in 2018.

And the deaths from weather are tiny.

Average yearly deaths from Excessive Cold (1997-2018) = 18 deaths
Average yearly deaths from Excessive Heat (1997-2018) = 13 deaths

It is true that Excessive Heat deaths are increasing, but at a rate of 0.54 deaths a year. So in 100 years, there will be an extra 54 deaths from heat.

But to counter that, Excessive Cold deaths are decreasing at a rate of -0.23 deaths a year. So in 100 years, there will be 23 less deaths from Cold.

So all up in 100 years, climate change will have caused an extra 31 deaths. Hardly an extinction event.

Drought in Tamworth NSW - Getting Worse? Not really

With all the climate strike going on, people are pointing at the drought in North west NSW as a reason to de-carbonise due to Climate Change. So as always, I put my devils advocate hat on, downloaded some data from the BOM from a weather station close to Tamworth and had a look.

So is the average rainfall in Tamworth worse as the climate has heated up? Not really. Been bad the last couple of years, and probably the worst drought since 1994, but overall, rainfall has actually increased since 1903

What about the number of rain free days? Actually decreasing since 1903

So this says more about preparation for drought than anything else. Maybe there should be more dams.

Victorian Total Fire Ban Days - Average of 10 per year, increasing at 1 day extra 10 years

Following my theme of "Does the hype of Climate Change match the stats", I give you the Total Fire Ban days in Victoria, Australia. With all the talk of climate risk etc, you would think that the Total Fire Ban days are getting a lot more plentiful. Well lets see.

Downloading data from the CFA in Victoria, one of the few agencies that publish data on this, we have the following since 1945. 30 year average is 10 days a year at the moment.

There is a fair bit of volitility here...It does show an increase, but the increase is basically 1 extra TFB day every 10 years...So to get to an average of 20 days, its going to take 100 years.

Something to watch, but not to panic about.

Australian Cities Extreme Heat - Not a lot of evidence to back up Climategedden (apart from Perth)

With all the talk of impending Climate doom in Australia, you would expect to see major increases in heat extremes over the various years hitting all Australia cities

But while the average temperatures are increasing over the years, you don't see a lot of heat waves.

To confirm, I downloaded some data from the ACORN network from  the BOM, for max temps since 1910 or so. In most of the cities, there isn't a lot of movement in the number of > 35 degrees Celsius days

For example in Melbourne, the 30 year average (1981-2010) of days of the year over 35 degrees is actually around 9. And its only growing at 0.005 days a year on the trend. Based on that, it will be another 200 years before the average rises to 10 days.

In Sydney, the 30 year average of days over 35 is 4.5. And only growing at 0.002 days a year, over the trend). Again, it will be 500 years before average goes 5.5.

Brisbane, for all the talk of extreme heat is pretty benign in general. Less than 1 day a year over 35 degrees! (though my records only go back to 1949). And not accelerating

Its really only Adelaide and Perth that might burn, both in the 20+ days for the 39 year average, and both accelerating. Perth is the real worry, basically an extra day of 35+ temperature every 7.5 years

So if you have a chance to buy Real Estate in WA, I suggest you pass. Buy in Brisbane!

ASHES TEST SERIES - BEST BOWLERS

Best 10 bowlers (in order)

1. PJ Cummins (AUS)

2. JC Archer (ENG)

3. M Marsh (AUS)

4. JR Hazlewood (AUS)

5. MJ Leach (ENG)

6. SCJ Broad (ENG)

7. Pattinson (AUS)

8. NM Lyon (AUS)

9. S Curran (ENG)

10. M Starc (AUS)

ASHES TEST SERIES - BEST BATSMEN

Top 10 Batsmen

1. S Smith (AUS)

2. BA Stokes (ENG)

3. M Labuschagne (AUS)

4. RJ Burns (ENG)

5. JL Denly (ENG)

6. MS Wade (AUS)

7. JE Root (ENG)

8. JC Buttler (ENG)

9. M Stark (AUS)

10. TM Head (AUS)

ASHES 5th TEST - England too good

And so it ends with an English Victory...Boo.

Though to be fair, they deserved it. The Australian batting was shithouse this test, with the exceptions of Smith (again, z-score of 1.4) and Wade (with a top z-score of 2.23). But there were 6 Australian players with z-scores under -0.5 (Lyon, Paine, Warner, Harris, Cummins and Hazelwood). You aren't going to win a lot of games if your openers fail and the keeper and tail don't do something with the bat).

For England, they had 4 players with z-scores over 0.5, (Butler, Denly, Stokes and Root) and only 3 under -0.5 (Broad, Archer and Woakes). So they certainly won the batting.

In regards to the bowling, Mitchell Marsh (z-score of 1.72), Joe Root (z-score of 1.53) and Leach (0.83) all had great games,  but Australia's Hazelwood (-1.02) and Siddle (-0.91) had shockers. And thats the story of the game.

I will post some Test Series summaries in a bit.

Same Sex Couples - 7 times less likely to have children in 2017 than Heterosexual Couples

Been looking through the IVF stats and pondered if we could use those stats to detect Gay and Lesbian Birth ratios. As Same sex couples absolutely have to use IVF treatments (Surrogacy in the case of Males and Sperm Donation in the case of females) to reproduce, we can extrapolate those figures to see what the interest is in having kids in the homosexual community.

Anyway, we first have to start with the estimates of the couples. In 2016, there were 46,800 same sex couples, 50.6% male, 49.4% female. The same sex couple rate had been growing at 6.8% a year since 2011. So extrapolating that into 2017, it leads us to 49,977 same sex couples in 2017.

In regards to total couples, in 2016, there were 5,200,000 couples in Australia (removing the same sex couples gives us 5,153,200), and that was growing at 1.5% a year.
So extrapolating that into 2017, it leads us to  5231138 hetero-sexual couples in Australia,

Now we have the births. Assuming all Surrogacy live births are Gay Couple babies (likely to produce a higher number), we have 62 babies born in 2017

Assuming all Sperm donor babies are Lesbian Couple babies (again, too high) we have 348 live births. So that gives us a total of 410 babies for Same Sex Couples.

The total live births are 309,142 births. Take away the 410 same sex couple babies and we have 308,732

So the rate of Hetero sexual couple to live birth is (5231138/308732) =16.94

Rate of Homosexual couple to live birth is (49,977/410) = 121.9

So Heterosexual couples are 7.2 times more likely to have a child in 2017 that Homosexual Couples.

If you divide the stats into Male Couples vs Female Couples

Males Couples  are 24 less likely to have kids than Heterosexual Couples
Female Couples are 4 times less likely to have kids than Heterosexual Couples.

Makes you wonder why the Same Sex marriage debate was so toxic. Same Sex couples are less likely to want kids anyway.

IVF 2017 - Only 4.5% of live births are IVF

Been having a look at 2017 IVF statistics that came out today from the National Perinatal Epidemiology & Statistics Unit.

Apparently 13944 live births came out of IVF treatment in Australia. Apparently that is an increase.

But if you look at the total births in Australian in 2017, we are looking at 309142 according to the ABS.

So in fact IVF babies only make up 4.5% of all births in Australia. Pretty small percentage.

Changes in Australian Suicide Rates over 40 years - Not much movement

Been having a look at Suicide rates in Australia over the last 40 years, and it is remarkable how little change there has been. Small decrease over the 40 years, but certainly nothing outragous.

Peaked in 1997, toughed in 2007 and now back on the rise. See graph below (figures from the ABS)

ASHES 4th TEST - Smith is the man

Wow, what a batting performance from Steve Smith. His z-score of 4.07 means he was an entire 4 SD's better than the rest of the Australian and English sides. Crazy stuff.

In comparison the two next best (Burns, the Englishman and Tim Paine) were both of 0.52. Those three were the the only 3 to have had good tests with the bat.

On  the negative side,  Warner had another shocker and Harris was poor as well. Having some problems with Australian batting at the moment, especially the top order. With the exception of Labuschagne, cupboard looks bare.

England need a Smith. They have a Stokes, but regardless of his heroics this year, he still only averages 34 in First Class Cricket. He had an average test (z-score of -0.38). Burns has been pretty good in the tests, and he averages 40+ in First Class Cricket...at the moment he and Stokes seem to be the only batting England can rely on. Root has been average in the first test, poor in the second test, Excellent in the third test, and again average in the fourth test. For a guy who averages 48 in first class cricket, its not good enough.

In the bowling stakes, again it was Cummins (1.15) and Hazelwood (1.16) who out performed (and Labuschagne with his freak wicket which gave him a z-score of 2.5!). Again Lyon was poor (-0.55). The English were ok, but Stokes had a hangover after his Third Test heroics and bowled poorly (-1.01). Glad that the selectors are reading this blog and put in my bowling recommendations.

Looking forward to the 5th test. Not sure what England to do, but they need an answer to the Smith question.