Denise Beale

PhD, author of 'How the computer went to school', retired educator. Growing older but not necessarily wiser. Still fascinated by the world.

[Our World in Data @OurWorldInData]

Australia is replacing coal and gas power with solar and wind—

At the turn of the millennium, Australia got more than 80% of its electricity from coal. This has dropped to less than 45%.

The chart shows how the country’s electricity mix has changed in recent decades.

In the 2000s and early 2010s, coal was initially replaced by gas, with only moderate growth in solar and wind. But in the last five years, solar and wind have been deployed much more quickly.

Gas is now on the decline, too. In 2023, solar overtook gas to become Australia’s second-largest electricity source.

While coal is declining, it still supplies much more of Australia’s power than most high-income countries.

(This Data Insight was written by @_HannahRitchie and @parriagadap.)

[Peter Gardner @PeterDGardner]

Australia's greenhouse gas emissions drop as renewable energy, batteries surge https://t.co/m8YG03b4nB

[Nick Volpe @nvolpewild]

Too many Australians are QUIET about land clearing and it has having devastating impacts! 😤
I am so sick and tired of Australians not realising how lucky they are to be surrounded by the most incredible animals. It will ALL be gone if you stay quiet!

[David Marler @Qldaah]

Qld Health Minister Tim Nicholls states no abortion criminalisation. David Crisafulli should march his MPs into a room & tell them no change to legislation & not taking it to the 2028 election. Remove gag. Tell KAP no. If Qld women want any changes they can let MPs know. #qldpol

[Melissa Sweet @MelissaSweetDr]

https://t.co/TB0spdABMw

[Lesley Russell Wolpe @LRussellWolpe]

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo isn’t the only sign of a world ill-prepared for another pandemic.
My latest for @insidestorymag https://t.co/TeJPNAzpKA

[Mark Kenny @markgkenny.bsky.social @markgkenny]

A well-argued rejoinder to the bilious tide of saint-claiming going on right now. From a business owner/originator who clearly knows what he’s talking about. Bravo

[Kevin Wilbraham @KPW1453]

The stairwell of Mousa Broch on the western shore of the Island of Mousa in the Shetland Isles. The broch was constructed in the Iron Age in around 100 BC. 📸 My own. #StairwellSaturday #Mousa #Shetland #Archaeology

[Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance @gavi]

When we think about the Black Death, we usually just think about the catastrophic death toll. But a forgotten scrap of parchment from 1349 flips the script by naming 22 ordinary people who actually survived the plague.

Here’s what this 670-year-old “sick list” means... 🧵👇

[Patrick Skinner @SkinnerPm]

This is so corrupt that the lawyers who crafted this should be disbarred & removed, the acting AG who signed it should be disbarred & removed, and the president who orchestrated it all should be impeached & removed & finally at long last made irrelevant.
Staggering corruption

[The Public Domain Review @PublicDomainRev]

For #WorldBeeDay 🐝 some late medieval specimens (ca.1440), from Tractatus de Herbis, a wonderful manuscript from northern Italy made to help apothecaries and physicians identify useful ingredients. More here: https://t.co/KXab9iIFRB @britishlibrary

[Jesús Fernández-Villaverde @JesusFerna7026]

Smartphones are not the explanation for the recent decline in fertility. Instead, they are an accelerator of deeper forces already at work.

Let’s start with the facts. Fertility is falling almost everywhere: in rich, middle-income, and poor countries; in secular and religious countries; and in countries with high and low levels of gender equality.

The decline accelerated around 2014. So, no country-specific explanation will work unless you are willing to believe that 200 distinct country-specific explanations arrived at roughly the same time.

Smartphones look like the obvious candidate: the first iPhone was released in 2007, and global adoption has been astonishingly fast.

Economists understand the first major decline in fertility in advanced economies, from 6 or 7 children per woman throughout most of human history to about 1.8, that occurred between the early 1800s and roughly 1970, well before smartphones. The main drivers were a sharp fall in child mortality (effective fertility was rarely above 3 and often close to 2) and the shift from a low-skill, rural agrarian economy to a high-skill, urban industrial one. We have quantitative models that fit these facts well.

Country-specific factors mattered too, of course. Proximity to low-fertility neighbors accelerated Hungary’s decline, while fragmented landowning structures accelerated France’s. But these were second-order mechanisms.

This is also why most economists long considered Paul Ehrlich’s doom scenarios implausible. We forecast that fertility in middle- and low-income economies would follow the same path as in the rich, probably faster, because reductions in child mortality reached India or Africa at lower income levels (medical technology is nearly universal, and most gains come from handwashing and cheap antibiotics, not Mayo Clinic-level care). Much of what we see in Africa or parts of Latin America today is still that old story.

But in the 1980s, a new pattern appeared. Japan and Italy fell below 1.8, the level we had thought was the new floor. By 1990, Japan was at 1.54 and Italy at 1.36.

This second fertility decline began in Japan and Italy earlier than elsewhere, driven by country-specific factors, but the underlying dynamics were widespread: secularization, an education arms race, expensive housing, the dissolution of old social networks, and the shift to a service economy in which women’s bargaining power within the household is higher. The U.S. lagged because secularization came later, suburban housing remained relatively cheap, and African American fertility was still high. U.S. demographic patterns are exceptional and skew how academics (most of whom are in the U.S.) and the New York Times see the world.

My best guess is that, without smartphones, Italy’s 2025 fertility rate would be about 1.24 rather than 1.14. I doubt anyone will document an effect larger than 0.1-0.2. Italy was at 1.19 in 1995, not far from today’s 1.14. The TFR is cyclical due to tempo effects, so I do not read too much into the rise between 1995 and 2007 or the decline from 1.27 in 2019 to 1.14 today. The direct effect of smartphones is not zero, but it is not, by itself, that large.

Where social media, in general, and smartphones, in particular, matter is in the diffusion of social norms. What would have taken 25 years now happens in 10. Social media are not the cause of fertility decline; modernity is. But they are a very fast accelerator.

That is why social media are a major part of the story behind Guatemala (yes, Guatemala) going from 3.8 children per woman in 2005 to 1.9 in 2025. Without them, Guatemala would also have reached 1.9, just 20 years later.

Modernity, in its current form, is incompatible with replacement-level fertility. By modernity, I do not mean capitalism: fertility fell earlier and faster in socialist economies than in market economies. Socialist Hungary fell below replacement in 1960, and socialist Czechoslovakia in 1966 (both experienced small, short-lived baby booms in the mid-1970s). By modernity, I mean a society organized around rational, large-scale systems and formalized knowledge.

Countries will not converge to the same fertility rate. East Asia is likely stuck near 1, possibly below, given its unbalanced gender norms and toxic education systems. Latin America faces the same gender problem plus weak growth prospects, so I expect something around 1.2. Northern Europe has more egalitarian family structures and might hold near 1.5. The very religious societies are probably the only ones that will sustain 1.8.

All of this could change with AI or changes in population composition. We will see. But on the current evidence, deep sub-replacement fertility is the “new new normal.” Unless we reorganize our societies, better learn to handle it as best we can.

[Cheryl Kernot @cheryl_kernot]

Big loss.

[Dr Monique Ryan MP @Mon4Kooyong]

Until last week Australia was the only developed country with endemic trachoma, a devastating eye disease which often causes blindness. Many thousands of people have lost their sight to trachoma, which is much more common in indigenous communities.

It’s been eradicated here after decades of work by doctors, nurses, medical researchers, and aid workers - with government support and sustained community involvement. Massive congratulations to all involved in this historic effort.
https://t.co/pKz57OJF5x

[Friends of Bats and Habitat Gippsland @FriendsBats]

We have lots of flying foxes here in Bairnsdale at the moment because in foothills and coastal forests of #GunaikurnaiCountry, lots of ironbark, redbox and stringybarks are flowering

[Gregory Andrews @LyrebirdDream]

AUKUS is “a submarine deal with no submarines” - Malcolm Turnbull.👇🏽 https://t.co/Y1Vrxf43nr

[Peter Whiteford @WhitefordPeter]

If you become unemployed in Australia your income drops more than in any other country in the OECD apart from the UK, so the idea that people come here to access unemployment payments is doubtful - apart from the fact that you have to be here for 4 years to get JobSeeker.

[Victoria Police @VictoriaPolice]

Daniel is missing. The 65-year-old was last seen on Warragul Road, Ashwood on 12 May. Daniel is familiar with public transport and knows the Glen Waverley Train line, it’s believed he may be headed towards the Collingwood area. ☎️ Glen Waverley Police Station on [phone].

[Merriam-Webster @MerriamWebster]

Something interesting you might not have realized:

A number of words in English are NOUNS when you stress the FIRST syllable...

But VERBS when you stress the SECOND syllable.

-SUSpect/susPECT
-CONflict/conFLICT
-PROtest/proTEST
-CONvert/conVERT

[💧Michael West @MichaelWestBiz]

"Not such a big deal, is it?" @MichaelPascoe01 cuts through the hysteria on Budget26, negative gearing, CGT, 'wildly optimistic' housing forecasts
#auspol
https://t.co/dZlWY1k8uw