Climate change 'strikes'

Apparently, having just voted in the LNP (conservative) government in Australia, and with both major parties supporting coal mining, the most effective thing people can do to attack the climate change 'emergency' is to have a day off work/school and wave some placards around.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/global-climate-strike-live-australian-school-students-march-in-protest-of-climate-change-20190920-p52t70.html

The funniest thing about these hordes of people gathering to protest human greenhouse gas emissions is that the rise in greenhouse gas emissions since the 1880s has been driven mostly by the inexorable growth in the human population.

Just do a back-on-the-envelope calculation of what global emissions and the temperature rise would have been if population was still at 1880s levels...

I also wonder how many of these people are actually paying the few dollars extra that would be required to get all their domestic electricity consumption provided by renewables? As with most things, many people will cry out for action, but generally only if someone else pays for it - either via taxpayer funded schemes or by costing someone else their job.

It will also be interesting to see how many people protest in the countries that have increased global emissions the most in the past few decades - since 2005 US emissions have declined by 758 million metric tonnes, the EU by 770 million metric tonnes, while China has increased their emissions by 3 billion metric tonnes, and India by 1 billion metric tonnes.

It's not a coincidence that the underdeveloped countries with huge populations that are trying to 'westernise' their economies and living standards are the ones currently driving the world towards temperature rises above the 2 degree 'crisis' target. And it also shows the futility of making heroic cuts in carbon emissions in the developed countries when this is being overwhelmed by rising emissions in the developing countries.

Yes, the rich nations with already high living standards can best afford transitioning to non-polluting energy sources, and should lead by example (and pay the 'sunk costs' of developing the required technologies). But if this truly is a 'climate emergency' the most significant change that could avert a climate disaster would be to ensure that developing countries only develop via non-polluting energy sources, rather than simply pushing ahead with economic growth at any cost (on the back of fossil fueled energy supplies).

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Progressing with my uni (and other) studies

A new uni semester (Q4) has just started. This semester I'm doing the 'Superannuation' subject. Browsing through the modules it all looks quite familiar, so I *should* be able to get another HD in this subject. So far I've completed four out of the twelve subjects required for the Master of Financial Planning degree, and have gotten two HD's (in Communication and Ethics for Financial Planners, and Investment Planning,) one D (in Financial Planning), and a Credit (in Commercial Law).

My GPA for 2019 (so far) is 6.0 which is just at the cut-off for getting onto the annual "Dean's List". Either a D or HD this semester will be enough to get on the Dean's List for 2019, but I'd prefer to get an HD this semester, as it will improve my chances of getting a university medal when I graduation.

My GPA overall (so far) is 6.25. To graduate 'with distinction' I'll need my GPA to be above 6.00, and for the Dean's Medal award at graduation I'll need a GPA above 6.00 AND be in the top 2% of my 'cohort' (which I think will be all the postgrad students graduating from the school of business that year). Hopefully I can get mostly HDs and Ds for the remaining subjects and get my final GPA to  6.50 or above. It's hard to know exactly what GPA will be sufficient to make it into the 'top 2%'.

This semester I also want to finish off the specialist courses in Margin Lending and SMSF that I'm doing with IIT, and also finish off the ADFP I'm also enrolled in with IIT. So I'll be quite busy studying for the rest of this year. Next year I'll only be doing my WSU studies, so it should be a little bit easier to ensure I get as many HDs as possible. Once I've finished the Masters degree I then plan on doing my CFP (the Masters degree will give me credits for three of the four required CFP courses) and to enrol in a PhD in Financial Planning. We'll see if things go according to plan...

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Trying "12:36" (intermittent fasting) for a change

My 'diet' hadn't been working too well this year - I'd stopped tracking my daily intake and gotten into a bad habit of buying snack foods when doing grocery shopping and then browsing on them while watching TV in the evenings. Instead of losing weight, I'd been slowly gaining weight this year!

So, after reading about 12:36 ('alternate day'(ADF), or 'intermittent') fasting producing some good results for weight loss and improving a range of health markers, I decided to give that a go. I'd previously found it quite easy to stick to a five-day regime of my version of FMD ('fasting mimicking diet') that involved a balanced but low-calorie (~600/day) regime for five days, but after initially intending to do that once a month (and stick to my 'standard' healthy diet plan the rest of the time), I'd found it too much of a chore to buy and prepare the fairly specific food items for FMD. After doing it a couple of times I'd never gotten around to it again...

Therefore, the '12:36' fast seemed like a good idea, as it will be a lot easier to implement. The original version of 12:36 is to eat 'ad libitum' (whatever you feel like) for 12 hours (eg. from 8am to 8pm) and then eat nothing for 36 hours (i.e. have a fasting day). That has been applied to 'normal' weight humans, but as I am obese (BMI ~34) I really don't think having any 'ad libitum' days is a good idea (I can easily eat a family pizza and a couple of packets of confectionery or a family-sized block of chocolate in an evening if I'm in the mood). Therefore, my version of the '12:36' diet plan is to stick to my standard, healthy food plan most days of the week, and simply have a fasting day every Tuesday and Thursday. If I'm really keen I might also stick to my low-cal 'FMD' diet regime some weekends.

I experimented with doing a couple of days of fasting last week, but not stictly as I did eat a few food items on those days. I ended up having 936 cals last Tuesday and 685 cals last Thursday. I didn't feel particularly hungry on those days, so I stuck to a proper fast on Tuesday this week (no food at all) and today. I've actually found it very easy to 'fast' - not feeling very hungry at all (no more peckish that I often feel at 4pm after having a normal breakfast and lunch!).

Studies have shown that ADF has similar benefits (at least in animal studies) as CRAN, so I think this might be my ideal diet regime. The biggest plus from my point of view is that it is incredible easy to implement - no special foods to buy or prepare, and nothing to keep track of on the fast days.

So far the only 'glitch' caused by fasting is that one day I completely forgot to take my multivitamins and prescription medications in the morning as I didn't have any breakfast.

So far I haven't been on ADF long enough to determine what the long-term rate of weight loss might be, but I'm hoping to lose weight at a steady rate of 0.5-1 kg/wk once the initial 'water loss' period is over, and then slowly move towards my ideal BMI (70-75kg) over the next 12-18 months. Hopefully my rate of weight loss will slow down as I approach my ideal BMI (it takes a lot more calories to maintain and move 110kg compared with 70 kg!) - but if not I'll just replace the 'fast' days with the more modest FMD food plan on those days once I get close to the lower bound of the healthy weight range.

So far the initial results look quite promising:

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Sydney Planning for Population Growth - a house built on sand.

A read a feature article in the SMH about how Sydney's population is expected to grow by 1.3 million over the next decade. The article is full of pretty computer generated 3-D views of 'projections' of where this increased population will be housed (mostly west of Paramatta), but, having looked at the data for my suburb, I have to question whether this whole planning exercise is built on pretty dodgy data foundations.

When I selected my suburb the 'model' responded that the 2016 population was 2,656 and that by 2031 it would increase to 2,677. Really? An increase of only 21 people?

Given that the brand new Northern Beaches hospital was recently opened in this suburb, resulting in rezoning from single dwelling to medium for quite a few blocks (one house nearby was already replaced with a block of six or so units just this year), and that the nearby High School is slated to be moved to another location and replaced with a new 'town centre' featuring three apartment blocks of around 10-15 floors each, I have to wonder at the accuracy of all the 'data' being used for these projections and modelling.

God help us if they are actually planning infrastructure developments based on these models.

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