Some years ago, near on to five now, your lead editor was able to live and work in Sydney Australia for a month, and spend some extra time afterward in this beautiful and interesting country.
I spent all my spare time touring what I could of the country, whilst meeting wonderful people. In all my time there, I had nothing but good experiences, relating to people from many different backgrounds. Sydney is incredibly diverse culturally, and I met Fijian-Indian Australians, Polish-Australians, Lebanese-Australians, and Indigenous/Aboriginal Australians, in addition to the most prevalent people, descended from the prisoners and settlers from the UK and Ireland.
[Jervis Bay NP, New South Wales, Australia. The clarity of the water here was astounding. eds.]
All citizens of that nation, with a fascinating history. I learned from all of them about that and their way of life and government, becoming very impressed and in admiration of what they have achieved. Not that it is a utopia in a real sense, there still is racism, crime, and all the other problems any "developed" nation has. Yet they have created and are sustaining a more just and fair society than we have in the USA, as we wrote about at the time. With things like a minimum wage, at that time, of 15.38 AUSD (about the same in USD), mandated paid leave for all citizens of four weeks minimum, unemployment insurance that does not expire (and fraud is not a problem there), and of course, universal health care. Thus, we never saw any homeless people in our travels, and crime rates were much lower than what we were used to, living in the USA.
This is all part of their history, as described here:
[Giant 100m tall Blue Gum trees in the Australian Alps at 1300m (4270 ft), near Thredbo, NSW]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Australia#A_.22fair_go22
A "fair go"[edit]
The belief in a "fair go" is a key part of Australian culture and Australian society.[140] One accepted definition of a "fair go" in this Australian sense is "a chance, an adequate opportunity. Often used to describe a fair and reasonable course of action".[141] The right to "a fair go" has been found to be the most highly rated value on a recent published survey of the opinion of Australian citizens.[142]
This belief sustains bipartisan political support for strong public health and education systems in Australia, as well as legislation such as equal opportunity legislation to ensure people are not excluded from jobs or positions by their race, gender or sexual orientation.[143] This value is frequently cited by politicians who wish to associate themselves or their party with the positive connotations of this notion.[144][145]
There has been ongoing public and political discussion of the place and future of "the fair go" in Australian society. This is especially frequent with reference to economics issues and policies.[146][147][148]
So it was interesting to see this article a few days ago. What a citizen of Australia sees of the USA, and their reaction and analysis. It shows what could be possible here, if enough people would be able to educate themselves. Give it a read, it's well worth the time. If every citizen of the USA who cares about their fellow brothers/sisters in their country did, some great energy and ideas would result!
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/20248-labor-as-seen-from-down-under-fair-wages-and-decent-benefits-profit-everyoneUNCHARTED TERRITORY
Here in South-Central Alaska, the environment is still reflecting signs of our unusually wet and mild Aug-Oct period, which we discussed earlier.
Even though, and partially because, we returned to more "average" conditions for the month of November. Which we were thankful for, as it allowed us to return to our favourite means of exertion, nordic skiing, by the middle of the month. Two spells of colder than average conditions, with temperatures on the eastern edge of Anchorage reaching -20C to -29C occurred during the month, which caused rapid buildups of ice along the streams emanating from the Chugach Mountains.
PRELIMINARY LOCAL CLIMATOLOGICAL DATA (WS FORM: F-6) , PAGE 2
STATION: ANCHORAGE AK
MONTH: NOVEMBER
YEAR: 2013
LATITUDE: 61 10 N
LONGITUDE: 150 2 W
[TEMPERATURE DATA] [PRECIPITATION DATA] SYMBOLS USED IN COLUMN 16
AVERAGE MONTHLY: 21.9 TOTAL FOR MONTH: 1.94 1 = FOG OR MIST
DPTR FM NORMAL: -0.4 DPTR FM NORMAL: 0.78 2 = FOG REDUCING VISIBILITY
HIGHEST: 43 ON 1 GRTST 24HR 1.27 ON 10-10 TO 1/4 MILE OR LESS
LOWEST: -9 ON 30
But the sheer volume of excessive rainfall that we experienced last August-October, is still "working its way" through the groundwater and streams, causing interesting, and potentially damaging effects. The water-table depth is becoming shallower, and in some areas, surfacing. If this trend continues, some residences in already swampy areas at the base of the Chugach Mtns. will have to be raised, or abandoned, as new spring-fed streams are forming, and expanding.
In addition, the larger of our streams emanating from the Chugach mountains maintained much higher than average flows through the month of November, which when mixed with the near-average temperatures, and the cold spells, have created interesting effects.
Much greater volumes of ice building up on the larger streams, in some cases forcing vast areas of "overflow" hundreds of meters from their banks. Which freezes solid, in a few areas, to a depth of a metre!
The ice has built-up around the banks 1-2m, and up from the bottom (anchor ice), while raised up in the middle, a deep 1-2m channel of fast water races through. In early November, before the sudden freeze-up after 11/10, the water here was just 0.5 metre deep.
In an area just downstream from this, in a level spot where the banks were shallower, the water has over-spilled, and created a 200+ metre wide plain of overflow ice, which is 0.3-1.0m thick, as of this writing.
There is a natural gas line which serves as the source for all of the east/northeast sections of Anchorage's heating, including here at the Chugach Front Research Centre. It is being overtaken by the rising water/ice levels.
This is how at looked on 11/30, just five days ago.
Here it is four days later, the ice/water level has risen substantially in this short period!
Needless to say, we are a little nervous. We hope this gasline is engineered to withstand these conditions of becoming encased in solid ice. It does cross the creek under water, so hopefully this is the case. Should repair be required on it, they'd have to cut the fence down, as it may eventually be encased in 1m of solid ice (it's probably about 50-60cm currently).
Everyone we've talked with here has never seen this kind of ice build-up and overflow flooding from these streams before. It has completely buried under solid ice the first portion of a vital connecting trail in our Far North Bicentennial Park, the notorious (for brown bear encounters/maulings) Mellen's Way. Rendering it useless, and unusable, unless you are in hip-waders with crampons on your boots. On our outing there 11/30, your lead editor wore knee-high boots with ice-spikes on, and still nearly got drenched feet. We won't be going back in that area for some time, even though we were fortunate to see an eagle perched out, another thing we've never seen here before in the middle of winter.
All this icing is creating incredibly beautiful scenery though, in spite of its potential hazard.
Unfortunately, some homes in town are now starting to see the effects of the stream ice build-up, as documented in this article from our local Anchorage Daily News.
http://www.adn.com/2013/12/03/3210815/unusual-winter-floodwater-overflows.html
This description from the article, from a hydrologist describes the problem, and what we have been seeing:
"Chester Creek overflowed its banks Tuesday, sending cold water into the basements and crawl spaces of a handful of homes near Valley of the Moon Park.
The recent cold snap caused water to freeze from the bottom of the creek to the surface, said Jeff Urbanus, a city hydrologist.
With the bottom of the creek bed solid ice, water flowed over the banks in places, he said.
The phenomenon is caused by an uncommon confluence of weather events, he said. Cold air plus warm-season rains -- this is the second-wettest year for Anchorage on record -- made conditions ripe for the phenomenon called "anchor ice," Urbanus said."
Combined with our lavish and colourful slow sunrises/sets at the higher latitudes, it is amazing. Since we've never seen this before, we are very curious as to what the rest of the winter, and spring will bring in our area. This is global warming at work, real-time. Cheers.
