GREEN TO THE FUTURE

As most of you know, A.P.R., is a green-oriented publication, and if someone asks me personally, about my political orientation, I don't hesitate in saying I'm a Green.

Green parties in all the "developed countries" have been around for several decades, and in some countries, such as Germany, have been able to influence policy, and have a significant number of seats in their parliaments.


And when I refer to myself as a Green, people in the other countries I've visited have always immediately been able to relate that to having an expansive, non-militaristic/competitive worldview, with a strong concern for peace, and social/political/environmental justice.

A.P.R. was certainly relieved that a Democratic president was elected instead of the overtly fascist alternative, but nevertheless, this country will still not see universal health coverage, expanded jobs programs, mortgage re-financing (to end the flood of re-possessions and plummeting real estate values), and other social benefits, without struggle. We are not of the "I told you so" ilk here, but so far what we see coming out of the White House is not promising, all the cabinet appointees have nothing new to offer, and except for one or two, could not be considered progressive. http://counterpunch.org/cockburn02062009.html . That being said, what would be happening, if whom we supported at A.P.R. had been elected? Well, give this a read, and see what you think.

GREEN PARTY FIRST 100 DAYS

How would a Green Party administration handle its first 100 days in office? Longtime Green activist John Rensenbrink offers these suggestions:

"Initiate a one-trillion dollar community-based grant-in-aid program from the national government to local communities. These funds will be channeled though collaborative arrangements between state and local governments and require maximum feasible participation in governance by all parts of each local community receiving these grants. Also required is a 5% matching grant from each participating local community. The purposes of the grants are for sustainable community development and community empowerment.

The grants include funds for renewable energy, conservation, work-force housing, small business development coupled with apprenticeship programs to hire the unskilled, open space, extra support for teachers and for ecologically informed education, college scholarships, food and water security, public works, public transportation, regional cooperative projects, support for neighborhood policing programs, and support for the arts. This replaces the "bailout from the top" scheme initiated in late 2008 called the Troubled Asset Relief Program. [These kind of projects are desperately needed in the hundreds of villages in the Alaska "bush", where poverty and unemployment rates are very high, A.P.R.]

Substantially lower the income tax and combine this with a carbon tax of $250 per ton to be phased in at the rate of $25 per year from 2009 to 2020 - the carbon tax to be offset at each step of the way with a matching reduction in income tax. This is advocated by Lester Brown of "State of the World" fame and is designed to discourage fossil fuel use and to stimulate investment of renewable sources of energy.

Extend Medicare to the entire population; in other words, a single payer health care program for all.

Establish a financial transactions fee. Economist Dean Baker estimates that a very small fee ranging up to, say, 0.25% will yield $100 billion or more annually. The fee would be placed on the sale or transfer of stocks, bonds, and other financial assets, including the great variety of exotic and speculator-driven financial instruments so much in the news lately.

Initiate a reparations program for dispossessed African American and Native American peoples.

Initiate a constitutional amendment for the election of President and Vice President by popular vote.

Pressure state and local governments to institute instant run-off voting in elections and to develop pilot programs for proportional representation.

Push for laws and administrative rules in military and civilian life that provide support for gay marriage and gay families.

End the drug war, decriminalize cannabis, and support growing hemp for industrial use.

Initiate a constitutional amendment affirming that the word "person" in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States applies to real persons and not to corporations.

Initiate -- through collaborative diplomacy -- Peace, Justice, and Sustainability Summits, starting with summits engaging respectively the governments in the Americas, in Europe, in Africa, in the Middle East, and in the Asia-Pacific region, leading to a World Summit on Peace, Justice, and Sustainability within two years.

Promote in these summits a worldwide program for collective security; renewable energy; and community-based sustainability programs in food, water, energy development, education, transportation, and local self-reliance, with guaranteed participation by all sections of the local community.Promote in these summits plans and provisions to end the trade in arms, the trafficking of women, and the militarization of space.

End the war and the military occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Promote equally the security and rights of both Israel and Palestine.

Develop a plan to close American military bases throughout the world, phasing out the bases in step with collaborative actions to provide the affected countries with alternative collective security arrangements.

Take leadership in promoting a worldwide financial transactions fee, the funds raised to be directed primarily to solar power development in developing countries.

Institute a world-wide carbon tax, proceeds to be used to lower taxes that burden small businesses.

Create a World Environmental and Labor Protection Organization alongside the World Trade Organization -- or expand the WTO to include protection of the environment and labor."

Now, polls consistently show that the majority of Americans support almost all the items listed in this what-if scenario. So, why don't we have universal health-care, etc..? Because the democrats and republicans all are beholden to the insurance industry, and until other parties are elected, nothing will change. Unfortunately, the corporate media does its best to ensure third-party candidates, or progressive democrats, and their ideas, are ignored, or cast as flaky, and idealistic/unrealistic.

With the economic situation continuing to worsen though, it's quite possible the Obama administration will be forced to take stronger actions when millions more jobs are lost, and civil unrest becomes possible. Which could easily happen, the way things are going. Just remember though, as you've heard here many times. Nothing we take for granted, job benefits (vacations, 40 hr. work-week, etc.), health insurance, civil rights, women's rights, etc.. came about through voting. They all came about because of decades of struggle and opposition. So it will be, if we do wish to see universal health care, and the other social benefits the rest of the "developed world" enjoys. Cheers.

THE GREAT BARRIER REEF, How much longer?

Parched: Australia Faces Collapse as Climate Change Kicks In

by Geoffrey Lean and Kathy Marks

Leaves are falling off trees in the height of summer, railway tracks are buckling, and people are retiring to their beds with deep-frozen hot-water bottles, as much of Australia swelters in its worst-ever heatwave.
Melbourne thermometers topped 43C (109.4F) on a third successive day for the first time on record, while even normally mild Tasmania suffered its second-hottest day in a row, as temperatures reached 42.2C. Two days before, Adelaide hit a staggering 45.6C. After a weekend respite, more records are expected to be broken this week.
Ministers are blaming the heat - which follows a record drought - on global warming. Experts worry that Australia, which emits more carbon dioxide per head than any nation on earth, may also be the first to implode under the impact of climate change.
At times last week it seemed as if that was happening already. Chaos ruled in Melbourne on Friday after an electricity substation exploded, shutting down the city's entire train service, trapping people in lifts, and blocking roads as traffic lights failed. Half a million homes and businesses were blacked out, and patients were turned away from hospitals.
More than 20 people have died from the heat, mainly in Adelaide. Trees in Melbourne's parks are dropping leaves to survive, and residents at one of the city's nursing homes have started putting their clothes in the freezer.
"All of this is consistent with climate change, and with what scientists told us would happen," said climate change minister Penny Wong.
Australia, the driest inhabited continent on earth, is regarded as highly vulnerable. A study by the country's blue-chip Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation identified its ecosystems as "potentially the most fragile" on earth in the face of the threat.
Many factors put Australia especially at risk. Its climate is already hot, dry and variable. Its vulnerable agriculture plays an unusually important part in the economy. And most people and industry are concentrated on the coast, making it vulnerable to the rising seas and ferocious storms that come with a warmer world.
Most of the south of the country is gripped by unprecedented 12-year drought. The Australian Alps have had their driest three years ever, and the water from the vast Murray-Darling river system now fails to reach the sea 40 per cent of the time. Harvests have fallen sharply.
It will get worse as global warming increases. Even modest temperature rises, now seen as unavoidable, are expected to increase drought by 70 per cent in New South Wales, cut Melbourne's water supplies by more than a third, and dry up the Murray-Darling system by another 25 per cent.
As Professor David Karoly, of the University of Melbourne, said last week: "The heat is unusual, but it will become much more like the normal experience in 10 to 20 years."

A little sensational, to be sure, yet Australia is highly vulnerable, as this article that was the headline today in Commondreams.org mentions. Fortunately Sydney, and all my mates I met there have been spared the brunt of this current heat-wave.

I returned from that interesting and dynamic continent one week ago, after my work tour ended, and a dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef, and have been re-adjusting to winter in Fairbanks. Mattie held the fort down well at the A.P.R. Chena Ridge research center, however, and so as a reward, we have been skiing and running quite a bit, so she can get the outdoor time she missed during my absence. We skied for several hours today on the Univ. of Alaska trails in the bright -25 to -30F sun, while most people were watching the Super Bowl.

When I first learned I would get the opportunity to work and visit Australia, I had to decide what to do with one week that I could afford to take for sightseeing, after my work tour ended. I thought about Tasmania, it would offer cooler weather and beautiful alpine scenery, since it is further south, surrounded by the chilly Tasman Sea. But I decided on the Great Barrier Reef instead. The largest coral reef system in the World, it is the Holy Grail of scuba diving, and I might never have the chance of seeing it again. Since I got my advanced open water diving certification, I can't dive enough, so this was a great opportunity.

Another reason I felt a strong need to visit the Great Barrier Reef, is that in our lifetimes, it may die out. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0516-02.htm Global warming, causing ocean temperatures to rise, is expected to have serious consequences for all the reef systems throughout the World.


This link, below, describes the latest information about this, as it relates to the GBR, since it from the GBR Marine Authority, the Australian government agency in charge of its preservation.
http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/corp_site/key_issues/climate_change/climate_change_and_the_great_barrier_reef
To add to all this bad news, increasing oceanic acidity, due to absorption of our increasing atmospheric Carbon Dioxide, is already showing up as problematic, and will be getting much worse. http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/31-5 This is all very bad news for the planet, the oceans are the most important life-support system we have, and damage to their health and ability to help regulate our climate, and for food production, will have serious effects on all countries.

It is with these thoughts in mind, that I felt the need to visit the GBR, so I could see it before it disappears.



I flew from Sydney on the 18th of January, 3.5 hours north to Cairns, the city most divers use as a base to explore the GBR. With a population of around 150,000, it is fairly large, with many resorts. At only 16 degrees south latitude, it is full-on tropical. Since I arrived on a mid-summer evening, it was 30C (86F) and raining! And I thought Sydney's occasional summer heat was taxing.



Cairns was not all that scenic the next morning, when I was taken by the Cairns Dive Center, with whom I'd booked my 3 day 2 night dive-boat trip, from my hotel to the waterfront. Record-breaking heavy rains the week before, and fairly heavy rain the day before (summer is peak rainy season there) produced so much runoff that the bay was green and brown for miles out.











We were taken on a smaller, 40 ft. or so, dive boat about 25 miles offshore, to a larger one, which stays on the GBR system, and just migrates from reef to reef each day. That trip took over two hours, and in the 5 to 7 foot choppy seas, several people got seasick, and I had to look at the horizon a few times. But, fortunately, nothing came up :).





















Upon reaching the larger boat, the 85 foot long Kangaroo Explorer, the six of us booked for our trips to start that day boarded and were assigned to our rooms. There were only four other divers already there, making 10 total. Since some were couples, and there were 7 cabins available, I got my own room, small with two bunks, yet comfortable, and bathroom! Since this was a larger boat yet, the rocking in the 5 to 7 foot seas wasn't quite so bad, and I actually slightly enjoyed it, being fairly novel. It was a little fun lurching back and forth while walking around, eating, etc..

I was the only Yanqui on board, the other tourists were all Euros. I had chatted the whole trip out on the small boat with a nice Swiss youngster named Marcus. I had thought he was 22-26, since he seemed fairly mature, and was quite large, 6'5". We became dive buddies, that is, divers never dive alone, but always need a partner, or buddy, so that in the event of any problems, help is always available. Before our first dive, he told me he was only 18, just out of high school, and traveling for six months, before having to do his mandatory six months in the Swiss Army (some European countries have this mandatory service requirement, Sweden, and Germany are two that I know for sure of, besides Switzerland). I was surprised, but he has his advanced certification also, so that was why we paired up.

Here he is, on our first dive. Note the gloominess, this was only about 40 feet down, but a tropical weather system was bringing rain and wind, and this was stirring up the water, so visibility was only about 20-30 feet. Not nearly what is possible there during better weather.

He snapped a picture of me down at 10 m (33 ft.), where it was a little lighter, with my underwater camera. The water temperature was an incredible 29C (84F), so we just wore light stinger suits, polyester fabric that just protects your skin from potential jellyfish incidents (I only saw one on my three days of diving, thank God!). Even with just these, I was close to overheating when working hard. Unfortunately, all the dives on our first two days were in the cloudy, gloomy weather and high seas, so the visibilities in the water were only 15-30 feet, and my pictures were not the most vibrant. But, it was still great fun diving in the warm water three times the first day, and four the second, including once at night. On this night dive, I surfaced before Marcus, while he went off with another group. After my mandatory 15 ft. 3 minute safety stop, I ascended without looking directly up first. I hit my head on the bottom of the boat! I didn't know I was so close to it. At first I thought I was in a cave, barnacles were overhead, but then realized I was in the space between the two hulls of the boat. Then I had a minor panic, thinking the boat would move, the prop would start spinning, and... I calmed down in a minute and just dove back down five feet or so, and out from the boat. Funny how those little panic moments happen.

While between dives, or when the boat would at mid-day move to another reef (which took about 90 minutes), it was nice visiting with the other tourists. We all had great conversations about our countries, and everyone kept asking me questions about Obama. I told them, yes I and most Americans were relieved and very hopeful, but not to expect too much. As, he wouldn't be in that position, if the powers that be (Military-Industrial Complex, Multi-National Corporations, Financial Industry, etc..) didn't approve of him. And that he would go the way of JFK, MLK, etc.. if he and his administration tried to change things too much. It's great how politically educated and progressive most Europeans I have met are, but it always makes me sad too, knowing how different it is in the U.S., and certainly in Fairbanks!

Day three of the dive trip more than made up for the gloomy, turbulent first two days. Upon arising at 0530, to get ready for the 0630 morning dive, I saw that the sky was mostly clear, and felt and saw the swells were much smaller. We were told by the divemasters on board that often the 0630 dive will be the best for seeing more variety of fish and life in general. We weren't disappointed!




My favorite memories of this whole trip were of that 0630 dive on the third day. Right after getting in and dropping down to 40 feet, we encountered these schools of fish, which we never saw on any of our preceding and subsequent dives. Fantastic!

The rest of these pictures are from the other two dives I did on that third day. The smaller dive boat to return me to shore arrived at 230 in the afternoon, and that was a long, hot trip, in that blazing sun.





Unfortunately, I don't know the names of most of the fish, or any of the corals I saw, there were so many.

There were several species that were purple and blue, which I thought were particularly beautiful.






The lighting when the sun was out on the last day, made for some very beautiful and interesting scenes, this was down at around 45 feet. All my dives were quite shallow, all the best corals, and hence all other life, was only around 55 feet down or less. Below that, just a sandy surface/plain, with not much to look at. So the deepest I ever got was just 75 feet, whereas sometimes in Florida or San Diego, I have to get to around 100 feet to see some things.



I'm not sure what these grey speckled fish are either. There was a large fish chart in the dining room of the boat, but it had hundreds of species on it. I would need to have hard copies of these photos next to it, to really get a good i.d.

If I'm not mistaken, some of these corals are just slightly bleaching. The Australian govt. web-site, given above, said there was some bleaching this summer, but not as bad, so far, as in other years.







What sets the GBR apart from other reef systems, and what I really noticed as different, from the ones in Florida I've been on, is the variety of the corals. There just seem to be an endless variety of them, all slightly different in color and shape. There were more varieties of fish, as well.







The only large creature I got to see was this nice loggerhead turtle. Four of us were diving together when we saw it on the second day. It just kept munching on some seaweed while we all manouevered around it. It was down around 60 feet, so the lighting was pretty low, it was a cloudy day, and the visibility was only around 20 feet. Still, it was great to see her, just casually munching, and not seeming to mind us being around her.

I think this is some form of grouper, these were the largest fish we saw. It was about 18" long. As you can see, it looks rather dim, this was down around 50 feet. Though it was on the third day, some clouds were still around, so when the sun was shaded, it got much dimmer down there.

All in all, this was a great ending to my previous five weeks in Australia. If I never get back there, I can at least remember the things I saw and did fondly. If I do get back there (which I would love), more surfing is on the agenda. Those beautiful beaches in and around Sydney were truly amazing, and the water during my stay, was always around 68-72F (20-22C). Perfect!


My little surf outing was the Wednesday of my last week working at the Sydney Bureau of Meteorology. My instructor was Michael (Mick) Logan, Senior Severe Weather Meteorologist. He holds a similar position in his office, to mine, in charge of the fire weather program, and so we worked together quite a bit, and he was in charge of my training.

Mile-long Manly Beach, one of the premier surf spots in the Sydney area, was the location. It was a hot day, heading up into the 90s F, but we started in the morning around 0800. The water was a perfect 70F or so, but,

as A.P.R.'s exclusive Manly Surf Cam shows, it was "blown out". That is, a fairly strong onshore Northeast sea breeze was blowing out the form of the waves, they would break very fast, not giving you much hang time at the base of the breaker. There was also a good swell from the Tasman Sea, so it was quite rough. This made for difficult conditions to learn in, the board was never very stable in the churning water. Mick would spot the best looking wave, tell me to get ready, then give the board a shove after I got on it and started paddling. I got churned under and tossed around several times, but that's half the fun (though these were small 2-4 footers, anything bigger will have to wait until my skills improve).

Mick said surfing is one of the hardest sports to learn, as you have to have good conditions come together, with/during the time you have available. I fully believe that, the best I could do during our lessons, was to just get up on my knees on the board. It was quite a good workout too, in the couple hours we were out. He's been surfing for many years, and lives right near Manly Beach, so is quite adept at the sport. I'll be doing some more learning in San Diego, next time I'm down, lots of good places for beginners there. Cheers.