Happy New Year Finland style

Photos show the sequential steps in the casting custom.

During one period in my life I spent some time with a woman from Finland and I am always reminded of her on New Year's Eve.
She had brought with her a charming Finnish tradion for this particular holiday.
First it took a bucket of snow. Then in a sort of ladle made specifically for this purpose she melted a small ingot of metal. I'm not sure what metal it was, but it melted fairly easily.
Once the metal had reached acceptable liquidity, a person dumped it into the bucket of snow.
The metal then solidified in random shapes. Once cooled enough to touch you picked it out of the snow and held it up to the light.
The image shadow that random sculpture threw onto the wall was to give you a hint of your fortunes in the year to come. Sometimes you had to tilt or rotate the metal until somethng recognizable became visible, but we always found something in it to apply to our own lives.
That has always seemed to be a grand way to welcome the new year and it also raises a pleasant memory every year. She is back in Finland now, and across the miles I hope she is performing this ritual tonight. I wish her a grand year in 2019 and thanks for the memory.

Here's a link to what the Finns call casting.

Was there a harmonic convergence I didn't know about?

Most of the snow off the roof now, bring on the rain.

Seriously, did I miss a harmonic convergence or some other cosmic disturbance?
Just the day before yesterday I was sitting on the porch feeling after more than two weeks I had finally reached a measure of comfort at the East Pole.
Then last night a weather forecast for the next few days. Up to 20 inches of snow and on top of that some rain and melting temperatures mixed in — spooking 40.
Normally that's not a big deal, but with almost three feet of heavily compacted snow on the roof, heavy rain soaked snow could be a problem. So my first day-long comfort quickly was traded for a day on the roof shoveling snow.
But it didn't end there. Both of my rechargeable headlamps decided not to accept a charge, leaving me literally in the dark. I found an older, regular one and it used up my last three AA batteries and they faded out before I was done reading myself to sleep. There are aternatives but most aren't very helpful when falling asleep is the goal.
Come the morning and there's an eerie quiet. I usually sleep with the radio on but no radio this morning. We all buy the old GE Superradio because they pull in weak signals and the batteries last forever. I've gone years without changing batteries. But, yup, dead batteries and I had put them in since I've been here this time,
So, after four hours on the roof, most of the snow is off it. I found enough D batteries to fire up the radio. Going to try some things with the headlamps when I start the genset later.
There is this, too, as I was climbing down from the roof, damaged shoulder aching, legs wobbly and breathing heavily, my clothes soaked through in spots, I looked over toward the outhouse. Appears to be about four feet of snow on the roof,
I will never sit in my chair on the porch and entertain thoughts of complacence again.

Life here isn't about the fun

At a little more than two weeks here, today, finally, I sat in a chair on the deck and realized I am comfortable and have life pretty much under control.
This has been one of the toughest times I've had getting here. To begin with there's lots of snow but it's the consistency of sugar and any time you spin the snowmachine track you dig down to dirt. I've been stuck so many times on my trail I lost count. I didn't get the machine up to the house until the day before yesterday. That meant I hauled almost all of my supplies up the hill in small sled sometimes pulling it up with a long rope hand over hand.
It's all been complicated by some pressure I put on myself offering this children's captain's bed I have to my daughter for my grandson. I said I'd try to get it to her by Christmas. I feel fortunate I made it up to the cabin at all by Christmas. Moving the bed  involved putting new runners on a rusty old steel freight sled and a different hitch for it on the snowmachine. Oh, I should mention it also involved lowering the bed from a loft 8 feet to the main floor,  by myself.
Back-tracing steps for a moment I did finally get the machine up the hill two days ago. The next day, yesterday it took me more than two hours to get it turned around and facing back down the hill. That simple process involved a lot of shoveling and two separate hitch-ups with a come-along. So a while later I am eating dinner and watching a video of Miami Vice and I hear a strange noise. I went outside to look and there's a guy and his snowmachine halfway up the trail to my house stuck and swearing to the stars, much like I had done over the past three weeks on that trail. I finally walked up, said he saw my light and just wanted to say a neighborly hello. For the moment I was livid about my dinner plus my trail being destroyed. I loaned him a shovel and went back to my dinner.
But, out here you can't do that.It got the better of me and I pulled on my gear, picked up another shovel and went down there to help. It took awhile but we finally got his big old machine out of there and him on his way home leaving me with a trail to repair today.
The trail repair went fairly quickly and I made it down and back up with little problem. Even brought the 40 lb propane tank I had left out near the main trail, closer to the house.
Then lowering the bed out of the loft went as easily is could be imagined. I changed the hitch on the snowmachine and that's when I sat on the porch, feeling satisfied, After more than two weeks, life was under control.
My thoughts went to an online exchange with a friend a couple of days earlier. I told her I was pretty much exhausted every day, and didn't much feel like conversation. She said she hoped soon I would get past this part and be able to have some fun. For some reason that sounded strange to me and today sitting in my Adirondack chair on my deck in 20-degree weather, what's the fun? And that's the crux of it: I don't do this for fun. I do this as a lifestyle choice. I can recall wanting to live like this in my imagination as an 8-year-old scouring the back wood lot with opera glasses pretending I was a forest ranger. So, for at least part of the year I am living it. It's not fun, I don't do it for entertainment I do it because this is the way I want to live. It's not easy, as a matter fact it can be incredibly hard as these past couple of weeks illustrated, Yet it is very satisfying and almost every day leaves me with some sense of accomplishment. Fun isn't the object. Living on my own terms, that's the object and this time it only took almost three weeks to get here.

Evolution of a Little Drummer Boy

   

 Isn't it one of life's minor irritations when some mediocre talent performs a favorite song and destroys it with individual flourishes?
   

Think of the "Star Spangled Banner." If you watch enough sports events sooner or later you will encounter some singer attempting to add a personal touch to the song and doing it badly. It's the national anthem for crying out loud, sing it the regular way.
    For some of us anyway, the same thoughts hold true for Christmas carols. I was raised Lutheran, not that I stuck with it, but the music stuck with me. Lutherans don't have any music newer than 200 years old. Something from the same century might as well have been rock and roll. I mentioned to a devout Christian friend one time how I only like the traditional carols. Her response was,"Yeah, we have the best music."
    I don't even want silver bells, or jingle bells, or even a white Christmas, I don't care if mommy kisses Santa Clause or if there is a red-nosed reindeer. Give me "Silent Night," (but not used to sell diapers in a Pampers commercial); "The First Noel," "Hark the Herald Angels Sing;" and oh so many others. And if you don't know where to go to hear them the way they should be sung, look no further than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir as a place to start. The Mormons do carols right. There is a version out there of "Oh Holy Night," with a soprano soloist who will give you goose bumps.
    However, looking further, now here comes the change of direction. Few new songs enter the category of traditional. The first one I knew about was "The Little Drummer Boy." It was written by the American classical music composer and teacher Katherine Kennicott Davis in 1941, first recorded in 1951 by the Trapp Family Singers, according to Wikipedia.
TRAPP FAMILY SINGERS
  
 There is some disagreement but let's go with that. It is a for-sure new carol by carol standards given many of them are hundreds of years old and this one is little more than 70. The first I heard it or even heard of it was when we had to sing it in a high school chorus in the 1950s. It had become popular at that time due to a 1958 recording by the Harry Simeone Chorale.
     This is it with the original tune entrenched.
HARRY SIMEONE  CHORALE

    Fortunately no recording I know of exists from our school Christmas concert. (Yes, children there was a time before camcorders, and smart phones (camcorder?)).
     Over the next few years it became a part of the repertoire of any self-respecting musicians who wanted to do traditional religious Christmas music.
     However, looking further, now here comes the change of direction. It didn't take too long before the Mormons discovered it and like they do with so many songs, just about made it their own.
MORMON TABERNCLE CHOIR
     
     Further yet,the song evolved, or at least the singers did. Over the next couple of decades, I heard several versions, some OK, some so messed up I had to turn them off.
     Then three or four years ago I came across a version by a group called Pentatonix, four men and a women. Honestly it knocked my socks off, not a good thing at this time of year in Alaska. They held true to the origin but the way they melded their diverse voices into a harmony of respect for the original was impressive. This is that version.
PENTATONIX

    And then as we used to say in the 60s "far out." Let a couple more years go by until last year, when I heard a totally new version. Who would ever have thought to feature drums in a performance of "The Little Drummer Boy?" Loud ones. Well these guys did and it's dramatic. Still they maintained the reverence for the origial song, just presented it a little more dramatically. You might want to adjust your volume level, lower if you don't like loud drumming, but higher if you like the full effect of good drumming.
FOR KING AND COUNTRY

    How far out can the progression go? Who knows, but I expect a new version one of these years. I know a couple of people who really detest "The Little Drummer Boy. Maybe one of these selections will appeal to them more. If not, as far as I am concerned you can drive your sleigh over the river and through the woods on a carpet of white Christmas to ring silver bells while Mama kisses Santa Claus. (Oh, the temptation was strong to add a little to that last one.) Merry Christmas.

What's wrong with this picture?

It's been 32 years since I built this cabin. Until that time the biggest construction project I had attempted was a dog house. I worked the simple design out on graph paper, went over it with a couple of friends who were more experienced, bought my package and came out here by myself to build it. Some folks I met out here helped me, but I still made mistakes. I moved in during February 1986.
     Now here we are in 2018, 32 years later. Today I was cleaning out places that hadn't been cleaned out in a long time. I came across a kit for that white shelf which I hadn't thought about in years. So, I put it up to hold the errant spices that roll around the counter on a regular basis. It was during the installation that I discovered a mistake I had made all those years ago in the winter of 1985-86.
     Have you figured it out yet? It may take a fine carpenter's eye to spot it.
     Here's a hint: The shelf is level. When I discovered it, I recalled the soul search I did when I realized the problem back then and finally decided rather that tear everything out and start over, I decided I'd live with my mistake. So far so good.
     Got it yet? Well in my novice attempt at house bulding I made the worst of all mistakes. You see, the shelf is level, yes, but the cabin is not. For 32 years this thing has stood with a floor sloping to the North, along with anything attached to it including the floor cabinets.
     When I went back to the boats that spring I told my boss about it.  Being an old Alaska hand himself,  he said, "I built my house in Fairbanks and there's nothing square or level in it. Been there 25 years." I can say something like that now, too.

We will rebuild

This is video from my security camera of the first minute of the earthquake. It wasn't snowing, that's snow being shaken out of the trees near the house.

By now everyone who wants to has learned about the earthquake Alaska experienced a couple of weeks ago. Now comes some time to reflect. First, this was my initial response to the national media reporting the quake. I have seen "horrible," "terrifying" and "massive," today. CNN even said it left people in a panic. Please stop the hyperbole. Yes we had an earthquake today, and yes it was big and closer to a big population center than usual, but it is one of more than 34,000 earthquakes in the state this year. It was the strongest one I have felt in my 45 years here. But it was not horrifying, not terrifying, not massive and I saw no panic except the usual run for cover at the first shake. We are Alaskans, we are used to it, most of us are at least somewhat prepared for it and we roll with it. After the shaking stops we stand up, dust ourselves off and start the cleanup. We don't need an excitable press making it sound worse than it is. And, please, we have nowhere to store thoughts and prayers.

      With an initial survey complete in my mind I went on facebook with this: Holy crap that was a big earthquake.

     All that said, We assessed the damage. For my place in Palmer, well, two picture frames. I was more worried about the cabin at the East Pole, but when I opened the door a couple of days ago, I was greeted by a green flashlight on the floor. So it goes. My friend Joe May who lives about 20 miles west of the East Pole some pictures on the wall were knocked akilter and he swears that his old cabin with its round base logs rolled back and forth and is not exactly where it was before the quake. Most tragic where two ceramic mugs a friend had made for him bounced off a shelf and broke. He was lamenting that online a day or so later and from some hidden shadow in my brain I recalled reading about Japanese artisans who repair such items with gold. Being far better read than I am, Joe recalled the name of the process and allowed as how he had a little gold in the house. As the saying goes, the rest is history or to say it properly. 
Joe May HIS STORY.
The rest of this is his account of the adventure:
KITSUGI
The sound of breaking glass and crockery during an earthquake is both terrifying and heartbreaking. 

Keepsakes that harbor memories...on the floor...in a hundred pieces.
"GONE!! GONE!! GONE!!" An experience here shared by many I'm sure.
Pondering the box of broken bits the next day the gloom began to lift when I recalled reading of a Japanese method of mending broken pottery. Half art and half practicality, 'kitsugi", using lacquer and gold to knit the pieces together, is a slow and tedious process requiring tree resin and flour gold...things which I have not....but I did have slow epoxy and cinter mica that could work and look the same.
A piece so "reborn", according to tradition, takes on a special significance lending it a nobility not possessed by the original...speaks to the infrangibility of memories. Something to believe in....
The one cup, in half a dozen pieces, was a simple glue job. The other was another story. A handful of shards, chips, and jagged fragments.
Hours of fitting, grinding, and repositioning tiny pieces culminated in a fair reconstruction...and a big sigh...and I swear, to faint applause coming from a cloud bank over this old cabin. "Audra??".
Audra Forsgren, late mistress, cook, and greeter at Ophir checkpoint, a stop on the 1979 Iditarod long ago hand made and gifted me a pair of ceramic cups as a remembrance of "First Team to Ophir' that year. One of the few reminders of the races and the dogs that I've kept through the years.
In hindsight, I think I needed to rescue these more for Audra than for myself. Now they have a uniqueness like no others in the world. ..and a place farther back on the shelf.
I'M BACK
    I hope no one takes offense at the lighter note here. There were some very serious losses, houses that collapsed, homes termed unlivable without repairs, schools damaged, public buildings, fortunately no serious injuries. And,atta-boys and -girls to all the emergency responders, the road builders, the inspectors and engineers and anyone else who epitomized the strength and resilience of Alaskans and got all the rest of us back to somewhat normal, mostly within 72 hours.

This inertia is getting me nowhere

.    That's a phrase I think is original. Only think because someone could have had the idea and maybe I heard it or read it somewhere. But for now I'm claiming it. I never felt it was anything in particular but a sailing buddy liked it and uses it occasionally, as do I.
     Like today for instance, this is when you would think and maybe say it. During a period of exhausting physical labor, like pulling a sled loaded heavily with supplies up a hill.
Every so often you have to stop and take a breath,maybe sit on the load for a minute or two. Then you look around the woods,is anythng moving?
     Where is the moose whose tracks you crossed about 20 feet back. Where is that owl you see every morning fly by in the early dawn light? Asleep hidden in the branches somewhere. Then there is Sherry, our first date a hundred years ago and I spilled a milkshake. Oh yes, Denali came out last night barely visible in the faded blues and grays and whites of civil twilight. The eyelids begin to droop and if you were indoors, you'd probably crawl off for a nap somewhere. Only you aren't somewhere warm. You are out in the woods and temperature is around positive 15 and you need to get these groceries up the hill before the eggs freeze and break.
     That's when you say it: "This inertia is getting me nowhere." Right out loud for all the forest creatures to hear, but mostly to wake yourself out of it so you can trudge another 50 feet or so uphill until the breath comes up short, the legs ache, you wish you had eaten a bigger breafast, but most of all, it offers another break, another drift off into the bliss of inertia.
     And maybe 50 feet at a time, sometimes less, sometimes more, especially in the flat areas, you finally reach that destination, pack away all that you brought up the hill, especially that little steak you left out to thaw for dinner, a just reward for all you've accomplished, but, after a short nap. You deserve it, after all you got where you were going despite all that inertia.

As we approach the solstice, days darken, skies go gray and so do spirits

Minimal decoration #1.

A friend of mine today was moaning about the dark days, overcast skies and general mild depression. Immediately I understood; I have been here before — when the short days approaching the solstice are complicated by continuously dark overcast skies. At this point, we have about 6 hours and 10 minutes of daylight along with about an hour at each end of what’s called civil twilight. It will get down to about five and a half hours at the solstice.

The year I discovered SAD I was working in a small office with three others and about this time in early December I noticed we had become irritated with each other and there was some sniping and shortness as we went about our tasks. At the time I didn’t know there was a term for it. On one such day I looked out the window and though it was daytime, the sky was dark, thunderstorm dark, and I said out loud: "Hey you know what? It's the weather. We go to work in the dark and we go home in the dark, we are indoors all day, and it's been overcast and gray for weeks. It's the weather, people." It was like a dawn broke. From that moment on just realizing it, we started to get along better.

Minimal decoration #2.

I didn’t know it at the time but it was my first realization about seasonal affective disorder. Later I learned the name and discovered the year I spent most of the available day outdoors on the deck of a crab boat and that coupled with clear, cold weather that there was something to it. Since then I know what happens and how to do something about it.

The first step is realization, knowing what it is and what causes it and how it affects a person. I think everyone suffers it, though to varying degrees. As for me I understand it and while it gets me down, I realize it is perfectly natural and do what I can to deal with it. Mostly it involves getting outdoors in the daylight hours, using full-color spectrum bulbs in light fixtures and possibly taking some vitamin D. Though I take it I’m not convinced about the vitamin.

In recent years I have spent this period of the year anxiously waiting for enough snow so I can go back to the East Pole for the winter. That’s a place I get outdoors every day. The delay seems longer this year but it hasn’t seemed to bother me as much. Today again I checked the snow cover at the cabin and was surprised to discover it is exactly the same as it was on this day last year — 2 inches. There is snow in the forecast through the weekend, so at this point patience is a virtue.

Chart shows daily snow cover near the East Pole. The red line marks this year; blue marks last year and green is the long-term average. For anyone looking for evidence of climate change, notice both recent years show 14 inches less snow than the average.

I am not saying I am unaffected, I am saying I am dealing with it in a rational manner, at least to my own satisfaction.

What has complicated things in the past couple of years is the holiday season has been less than celebratory for me, better in the woods, but not particularly joyous. But last night after a rather moving Christmas episode of 9-1-1 I actually dug through the boxes and put up two holiday decorations. No sense going overboard if I don’t plan to be here, but walking by them makes me smile so there’s that anyway. Then today I started organizing the packing for the trip to the Pole. A couple of more ways to lift the spirits above the gray mountain horizon. As for the future, by the end of January we have almost a full day of daylight to look forward to.

FYI: The episode of 9-1-1 was Season 2, Episode 10 on Fox 11/26/18 if you have on-demand access. Bring Kleenex.

WebMD on seasonal affective disorder

It just keeps on fishing, and fishing, and fishing. and …

Crew members lift recovered gear from a skiff to the main deck.

     Over the past few years several articles have been published online and in other media about people rescuing whales tangled in fishing gear. You have to cheer for those people, for sure, but also try to find where that fishing gear, much of it discarded overboard by the world's fishing fleets. comes from. The problem isn't sporadic, it's massive and ubiquitous.
     In August of 2010, I spent the better part of a month in the Pacific gyre ostensibly attempting to quantify the amount of plastic in the ocean. By pure bulk and weight, most of what we recovered was discarded fishing gear, ghost nets pitched overboard that continue fishing into eternity.
     Given the recent publicity I thought it might be interesting to show the gear we found and collected. Mind you this is netting and rope and buoys that had outlived their usefulness or become so hopelessly damaged in one way or another that fishermen just pitched it overboard where it can float and keep fishing for centuries and entangling uncounted whales and other ocean critters in their tentacles.
These photos were taken during our 2010 trip.


















Further reading

Tangled whale freed by Alaskans Thanksgiving Day 2018 Anchorage Daily News
Report finds 700,000 tons of fishing gear discarded and floating in the ocean
A single discarded net can keep fishing for centuries — Natural Resources Defense Council
Pacific garbage patch made mostly of fishing gear — National Geographic

Watch a whale show appreciation after being freed from fishing gear.



You can find other stories by searching "whales rescued from tangled fishing gear"

Climate report author responds to critics in massive tweet thread

One of the authors of the Fourth US National Climate Report took to twitter today to respond to the wave of ignorant criticism of the report coming from conservative pundits and politicians. It is wothe the read,

The Fourth US National Climate Assessment was released on Friday. Since then, a number of politicians + pundits have made statements about it that are not accurate. As an author, I'm here to set the record straight. Here we go! (thread) https://t.co/4qV9ss3Tr3

— Katharine Hayhoe (@KHayhoe) November 27, 2018

Here is a link to the entire thread

This is a link to the original article and the report

The new federal Climate report

Over the weekend (when news interest is at its lowest) The Fourth  National Climate Assessment was released. It tells an alarming story about the progress of climate change and general global warming. I have pulled some of the generalities from it here and posted the Alaska chapter at the bottom. Follow links to the full report or any other sections that might interest you. My apologies, apparently I have no control over formats for these copies and pastes.

Fourth National Climate Assessment

Volume II Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States Report-in-Brief

Full report available online 

In August 2018, temperatures soared across the northwestern United States. The heat, combined with dry conditions, contributed to wildfire activity in several states and Canada. The cover shows the Howe Ridge Fire from across Lake McDonald in Montana’s Glacier National Park on the night of August 12, roughly 24 hours after it was ignited by lightning. The fire spread rapidly, fueled by record-high temperatures and high winds, leading to evacuations and closures of parts of the park. The satellite image on the back cover, acquired on August 15, shows plumes of smoke from wildfires on the northwestern edge of Lake McDonald.
Wildfires impact communities throughout the United States each year. In addition to threatening individual safety and property, wildfire can worsen air quality locally and, in many cases, throughout the surrounding region, with substantial public health impacts including increased incidence of respiratory illness (Ch. 13: Air Quality, KM 2; Ch. 14: Health, KM 1; Ch. 26: Alaska, KM 3). As the climate warms, projected increases in wildfire frequency and area burned are expected to drive up costs associated with health effects, loss of homes and infrastructure, and fire suppression (Ch. 6: Forests, KM 1; Ch. 17: Complex Systems, Box 17.4). Increased wildfire activity is also expected to reduce the opportunity for and enjoyment of outdoor recreation activities, affecting quality of life as well as tourist economies (Ch. 7: Ecosystems, KM 3; Ch. 13: Air Quality, KM 2; Ch. 14: Tribal, KM 1; Ch. 19: Southeast, KM 3; Ch. 24: Northwest, KM 4).
Human-caused climate change, land use, and forest management influence wildfires in complex ways (Ch. 17: Complex Systems, KM 2). Over the last century, fire exclusion policies have resulted in higher fuel availability
in most U.S. forests (CSSR, Ch. 8.3, KF 6). Warmer and drier conditions have contributed to an increase in the incidence of large forest fires in the western United States and Interior Alaska since the early 1980s, a trend that is expected to continue as the climate warms and the fire season lengthens (Ch. 1: Overview, Figure 1.2k; CSSR, Ch. 8.3, KF 6). The expansion of human activity into forests and other wildland areas has also increased over the past few decades. As the footprint of human settlement expands, fire risk exposure to people and property is expected to increase further (Ch. 5: Land Changes, KM 2).

Fourth National Climate Assessment
Volume II
Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States
Report-in-Brief

Link to the report in brief

Here's a link to an index of available downloads

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Chapter 26: Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the Nation, almost one-fifth the size of the combined lower 48 United States, and is rich in natural capital resources. Alaska is often identified as being on the front lines of climate change since it is warming faster than any other state and faces a myriad of issues associated with a changing climate. The cost of infrastructure damage from a warming climate is projected to be very large, potentially ranging from $110 to $270 million per year, assuming timely repair and maintenance. Although climate change does and will continue to dramatically transform the climate and environment of the Arctic, proactive adaptation in Alaska has the potential to reduce costs associated with these impacts. This includes the dissemination of several tools, such as guidebooks to support adaptation planning, some of which focus on Indigenous communities. While many opportunities exist with a changing climate, economic prospects are not well captured in the literature at this time.

As the climate continues to warm, there is likely to be a nearly sea ice-free Arctic during the summer by mid-century. Ocean acidification is an emerging global problem that will intensify with continued carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and negatively affects organisms. Climate change will likely affect management actions and economic drivers, including fisheries, in complex ways. The use of multiple alternative models to appropriately characterize uncertainty in future fisheries biomass trajectories and harvests could help manage these challenges. As temperature and precipitation increase across the Alaska landscape, physical and biological changes are also occurring throughout Alaska’s terrestrial ecosystems. Degradation of permafrost is expected to continue, with associated impacts to infrastructure, river and stream discharge, water quality, and fish and wildlife habitat.

Longer sea ice-free seasons, higher ground temperatures, and relative sea level rise are expected to exacerbate flooding and accelerate erosion in many regions, leading to the loss of terrestrial habitat in the future and in some cases requiring entire communities or portions of communities to relocate to safer terrain. The influence of climate change on human health in Alaska can be traced to three sources: direct exposures, indirect effects, and social or psychological disruption. Each of these will have different manifestations for Alaskans when compared to residents elsewhere in the United States. Climate change exerts indirect effects on human health in Alaska through changes to water, air, and soil and through ecosystem changes affecting disease ecology and food security, especially in rural communities.

Alaska’s rural communities are predominantly inhabited by Indigenous peoples who may be disproportionately vulnerable to socioeconomic and environmental change; however, they also have rich cultural traditions of resilience and adaptation. The impacts of climate change will likely affect all aspects of Alaska Native societies, from nutrition, infrastructure, economics, and health consequences to language, education, and the communities themselves.

The profound and diverse climate-driven changes in Alaska’s physical environment and ecosystems generate economic impacts through their effects on environmental services. These services include positive benefits directly from ecosystems (for example, food, water, and other resources), as well as services provided directly from the physical environment (for example, temperature moderation, stable ground for supporting infrastructure, and smooth surface for overland transportation). Some of these effects are relatively assured and in some cases are already occurring. Other impacts are highly uncertain, due to their dependence on the structure of global and regional economies and future human alterations to the environment decades into the future, but they could be large.

In Alaska, a range of adaptations to changing climate and related environmental conditions are underway and others have been proposed as potential actions, including measures to reduce vulnerability and risk, as well as more systemic institutional transformation.

HERE'S A LINK TO THE COMPLETE ALASKA SECTION

  

Adaptation Planning in Alaska

Map shows the locations of tribal climate adaptation planning efforts across Alaska. Adaptation activities include community-led impacts assessments, trainings, workshops, webinars, and adaptation plans. Activities are concentrated in the northwest and southwest regions of Alaska, however, a number of adaptation plans are currently in progress in the southeastern part of the state.

The map shows tribal climate adaptation planning efforts in Alaska. Research is considered to be adaptation under some classification schemes.1,2 Alaska is scientifically data poor, compared to other Arctic regions.3 In addition to research conducted at universities and by federal scientists, local community observer programs exist through several organizations, including the National Weather Service for weather and river ice observations;4 the University of Alaska for invasive species;5 and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium for local observations of environmental change.6 Additional examples of community-based monitoring can be found through the website of the Alaska Ocean Observing System.7 From Figure 26.9 (Source: adapted from Meeker and Kettle 20178).

Observed and Projected Changes in Annual Average Temperature

Figure 26.1: (a) The graph shows Alaska statewide annual average temperatures for 1925–2016. The record shows no clear change from 1925 to 1976 due to high variability, but from 1976–2016 a clear trend of +0.7°F per decade is evident. (b) The map shows 1970–1999 annual average temperature. Alaska has a diverse climate, much warmer in the southeast and southwest than on the North Slope (c) The map shows projected changes from climate models in annual average temperature for end of the 21st century (compared to the 1970–1999 average) under a lower scenario (RCP4.5). (d) The map is the same as (c) but for a higher scenario (RCP8.5). Sources: (a) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency and U.S. Geological Survey, (b–d) U.S. Geological Survey.

SHRINK

Patience, my dear, patience

   
 This meme showed up on facebook a day or so ago. For anybody who writes it certainly rings true. It reminded me of an event in my own life.
     Some years ago I was walking with a woman friend in downtown Anchorage. This was in the days of the Book Cache of Fifth Avenue, I believe. We passed the book store's window and stopped for a moment. It was dedicated to a single book and I recall saying in a low under-confident voice, "someday I am going to have that window."
    Her response was less than enthusiastic. I don't recall her saying anything, just giving me a "yeah-sure" glance.
     Four years later I walked past that same window, alone this time. And guess what: the only book in that window was one I wrote.
     A few years later I was walking by the same window: same book, different woman. As we
stopped to look at it a fellow we knew walked up. He asked what we were looking at. "Tim's book," she said.
In a challenging tone he demanded to know what I had to do with that book. "He wrote it," she said. The surprised expression on his face looked more like an insult than an compliment, but …
… sometimes the medicine does work.

Stories I've written, always meaning to send

 
  Let this be a lesson to some young person out there. If you have an idea, about anything, carry it through as far as you can. You will often stop at some point when you realize it's not going to work, but everyone has at least one good idea and it's a goddamned shame when you look up one day and find out someone else had the same idea and carried it through.
     Case in point. Tonight while watching television and ad come up for a new show scheduled to begin in January. It's called "Found Innocent." It gave me a cold chill.
    You see, I had this idea years ago, even wrote what's called a treatment for it. I have searched for that treatment but so far no luck. In it the main protagonist each episode took on the case of a person imprisoned and maintaining his innocence. Each prisoner would provide a different story, some of them actually innocent and others who were just where they were supposed to be.
     I found it. It's dated May 5, 2014, but it may have been updated on that date. I probably had been thinking about it long before that, Anyway, just because I can, this is what I had prepared: ( And for the sake of truth I am not going to make any corrections or changes at all. This is the way I left it in 2014)

INNOCENCE

BAsed in the cliche that everyone in prison says he's innocent and loosely based on the Innocence Project

 Main character former prosecuting attorney who learns he send a man to the chair who was innocent.  Now in private practice, he volunteers pro bono at a prison advising people in prison.  Nrried, young old girl friend  what?

He has a buddy in the police department.  They meet when the detetective forces his way into the office (most police don't like the lawyer)  and makes him very nervous.  Turns out the lawyer ahd been instrumental in proving the policeman's convicted brother was actually innocent and so he says a faver is owed. Lawyer takes liberal advantage of access to police files.

He has to have a secretary gatekeeper helper but this is cliche.  He could have a law grad student helpling with all the hyoung innocence'

Private detective.   This is going to be a woman, tough and capable who does investigations for the lawyer. There can be sexual tension here, but she over the long run pushes off any hint of  connection.

Detective's boss and colleagues don't like his connection with the lawyer and at times try to subvert him.

Head of  the firm:  Silver haired white guy who doesn't like all the pro bono work. )A thought here some civil case he forces on the lawyer turns out to be connected to one of his innocence cases.

Maybe need a nemisis prosecutor.

FIRST CASE

 ANOTHER MORE TIMELY STIMULUS:   A kid in jail for 20 years for having a pocketfull of pot.

 First case: Hard looking goth girl comes into his office.  Says her boy friend is innocent and he told her the lawuyers name becasue he heard it from someone in prison.  She explains the case but says they have no money and says her boyfriend told her to fuck the lawyer if she had to.  Looks:  a teardrop tattoo under one eye and that one with heavy goth makeup....  the other eye just shadowed like sunken zombie like. Nose ring, short straight dark hair.  fingerless gloves and sexy. And makes no bones about fucking the guy.

Prisoner, hard case biker gangster who is guilty of a lot but not the crime he was convicted of. not very likable  but that's part of the deal of the innocence project, if the person is not guilty he is not guilty no matter what kind of person he is.

The guy's crime: Seeing a biker gang fight.  Gun shots. A guy goes down.  Just then someone attempts to drive a pickup truck through the center of the fight scattering combatants in all directions. The prisoner sees a guy layng in the street and grabs the shoulders of his lether jacket and pulls him to safety, only in turning the guy over to learn he is not only dead,  he is wearing the jacket of the other gang. Our biker pulls th body into the bushes and hightails it not realizing he has dropped his knife by the body and picked up some blood on his own clothing.  By a circuitous route he makes it to his bike as he hears sirens. He atempts to get out of there but the street he heads down has cops coming at him.  He makes a quick turn into an alley. but his rear wheel hits a spot of oil and he skids out of control into the side of a building right in front of the comps and knocks himself out.  He wakes up in jail. The bllood on his coat, his knife by the body, and a witness who saw him dragging the bodyh away  are enoujgh to convict him. He gets 15-30 for second degree murder largel becasue of the prior arrests and convictions. mostly for assault but a couple of minor possession drug busts. His gang is supected of drug trafficking.

During the fight: whole bar erupts.  Spills out into the street. As it does a big guy grabs the girlfriend and drags her kicking out a side door into an alley.  There he slams her against a dumptster then throws her to the ground, holds her down and starts to tear off her jeans.  from her pocket she pulls a knife and stabs him in the stomach. and while he is still shocked she cuts him across his neck.  Then she is abel  to squirm out from under him and head away from the meless int he street down toward to opposite end of the alley.

In the street sirens and then police and the boyfriend runs and turns into thee ame alley to escape. when he is about halfway down the alley a car roars into the alley heading toward him.  He sees the victim laying there and runs, pulling him out of the way just as the car passes.  But, right behind the car comes a police car.  The police see the guy with the victim, come to a stop and jummp out to subdue the guy and put him under arrest.  

Meanwhile the gril has left the alley just before the first car, hides agains a wall is it also emerges and turns away from where she is hiding.  Once free of any observation, she makes her way down the street and into the darkness whil her boyfirend  is hauled off to the jail.

CHANGE THIS SLIGHTLY TO AVOID IDENTIFYING THE REAL KILLER.  During the fight a big tough guy drags the girl out of the bar by a back door opening into the alley.  Minutes later the boyfriend/convicted runs into the alley to escape police. He sees another figure farther donw the alley running away. He starts to follow mostly for his own escape but trips over  the guy. A car screetches into the alley chased by police. The figure disappears at the end of the alley in the same shot where the biker is pulling the victim out of the ay of the car. The car roars past followed by a police care which sotps when they see the biker with the body.

Now how do they prove him innocent.             

1  did they check his knife for blood

2. attack the witness...  did he actually see the guy stab the victim   no  only dragging him away

3. forensices:  blood on his jackt is it the kind of spatter that would come frtom stabbing someone?  No only dragging and turning over. Knife found by body, too bloody from neck wound, no prints, blood washed away.   Might somewhere find an odd print of partial finger but cut off evenly.  Like made from fingerless gloves like got girl was wearing.  Looking at one print taken.middle and lower sections of finger but no tip print.

4.  Depth of stab wounds,    neck wound is shallow but evidence knife was twisted while in the wound.

5. Investigation centers on identification of the mystery person in the alley.  Interview people in the fight. Did anyone see anyone go out the back door?  Identifiable. Bartender might have seen (a man and a woman leaving) Later admits, man was forcing woman out the door.

SOULUTION

Turns out she did it. WEaker knife wouldnds plus a gun shot from a small weapon.

 WRITING PROMPTS

What are protagonist's top five monthly expenses

 So that's it. Obviously not a finished, polished treatment, but you get the idea. So, now as I anticipate a television show coming up in January all I can say is godammit!  At least I can hope I will be at the East Pole and unable to watch it. And I can hope some young writer will be encouraged to believe in his work and follow it through. At times like this I recall something overheard near a harbor one day. A woman owned a restaurant one step up from a food truck. By herself she was digging a trench to run a water line from a nearby building to her restaurant. As she worked several men stopped to watch for a minute or two. When one of them shouted a wise crack she hollered back: "You can pick up a shovel, you know. Nothing's stopping you but fear."

Nothing stopping any of us but fear. Go for it.

It was the best of days; it was the worst of days

     Today I was chatting with a friend and the subject of computers came up. I told her the story of the
day a young fellow in the newsroom whom I was training to work on the web site told me in effect he was surprised somebody "your age" was computer savvy. I asked the kid who he thought invented them and that was the end of that.
     But that brought to mind another computer story. They say the best and worst day in a boy's life is the day he beats his father at something. Well at the time this happened I only had a daughter. Her mother related  the story to me. It seems one day my daughter complained to her mother that she had always gone to me when she had a computer problem. And then one day I had to go to her with a computer problem. Best day/worst day. So it goes
     And my son who came along later? I don't remember the exact day, but it was somewhere around eighth or ninth grade and in succession he threw up a 3-pointer over me and then on the very next play got me off balance with a quick-step fake, dribbled around me and put up a layup while I watched flat-footed — posterized. I won't go into his expertise with video games.  I never had a chance there.
    I have to say they may be best and worst days for my kids, but for a proud papa, they were the best.

There's no logic, no logic at all

The Bering Sea threatens the beach at Kivalina.
Photo from University of Alaska Fairbanks journalism

    "There's no foundation, no foundation all the way down the line." — from The Time Of Your Life © 1939 by William Saroyan
    
 Get this. On the northwest coast of Alaska there's a small village named Kivalina. For years the shoreline in front of the village has been eroding to the point where the village is in danger of falling into the ocean and a very expensive effort is being undertaken to move the entire town to higher ground, Tuesday the village voted 51 to 20 for a congressional candidate who is a noted climate-change denier while ignoring his opponent who has openly advocated for measures to curtail the effects of global warming. As Bette Midler said, "why bother."
     In a state that largely relies on salmon for commercial fishermen, sports fishermen including a large number of nonresidents whom guides depend on, and subsistence fishermen, voters rejected a ballot measure that was largely opposed by resource extraction industries. Just the commercial fishing portion employs 57,544 people. The proposal would have protected salmon habitat in watersheds and streams around the state. All that measure would have done was codify conditions for permit applications that had been already in use for years. The proposition lost by more than 5,000 votes.  Let this sink in: ALASKANS VOTED AGAINST SALMON.
     In fact just about every state showed some inroads by the new wave except Alaska.
     Elsewhere this sort of thing happened: A Nevada brothel owner who died a few weeks before the election won a seat in the state's legislature.
     The list probably goes on and on. For instance, pundits are heralding the fact that about 50 percent of senior citizens (frankly I would rather be a dirty old man than a senior citizen) voted for candidates who vowed to protect Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This they said was a massive movement from one side to the other. You have to wonder why the other 50 percent would vote for a party determined to cut into those vital services for the nation's elderly.
    Two candidates for the US House, one in New York one in California, who are currently facing felony trials were re-elected.
     On the other hand: A gay Native American female MMA fighter won a Congressional seat in Kansas. 
    Meanwhile across the country voters continue to support the very people who are committed to do those voters the most harm by supporting the richest two percent of the population. 
    It all recalls the comment that political science teaching assistant wrote on my paper giving  logical explanation for a political campaign and election in South America:                                                          "There is no logic in politics. C– "
    At least we have half a Congress that has the opportunity to turn things around. One can only hope.

Better Midler. "Angst on a shoestring"