When I sat down to write this, my immediate thought was: what do I have to be thankful for? I'm surrounded by death, disease and destruction. The airlines lost literally everything I own - I've been wearing the same clothes for over a week, and I just got done with a 12 hour round trip boat ride to an Island of death that involved a death defying motorbike ride (the 2nd in two days).

But then I remembered what thanksgiving is all about. And so I stand and toast to the following:

First, to our crew of misfits. Cameraman Sanjiv Talreja, who I saw leap off a ferry to get a shot as his blackberry flew into the water - also a man who can sleep anywhere - including on the back of flying motorbikes. Producer Ayanjit Sen, who can speak more languages than I knew existed, somehow managing to keep our expenses in line, when you're tipping local boys on barren islands who help carry our gear that can't be an easy feat. To producer extraordinaire Tim Schwarz who swooped into country from Hong Kong with gear and the heart to carry the story forward - literally editing pieces in speedboats across the vast Bangladesh delta. All the while, never once did they complain about the smell emanating from their fore mentioned dirty and smelly reporter.

To our foreign desk - always a calm voice on the other end, making our pieces stronger, available 24 hours a day for anything, and making sure the world sees the tragedy that has struck this beautiful nation.

To our London bureau - for running around like crazy and making sure all our paperwork was in order. Our editorial head in London for recognizing early as she did that this was an important story, and coordinating with our incredible futures department to deploy quickly.

To our families - who put up with so much. So many missed holidays, year after year - checking the TV to see how we're doing instead of watching football as many others are, and always looking on the Internet to see how we're doing. Text messages in the middle of the night, expecting the worst, but always sending supportive messages. Our wives and significant others - who groan when that phone rings and we leap out the door - another holiday burned . they still stand by our side.

To all journalists, who are in war zones and disaster areas around the world - from Iraq to Africa to tents in Bangladesh - speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves, acting as a global megaphone, showing how the majority of the world really lives.

To the people of this beautiful country who have lost so much - but still try to hand us what little water they have left - when we look thirsty and insisting all the way through thick jungle and past mass graves to carry our heavy gear.

To the children of Bangladesh whose faces tell the story of death - as they carry forward, one foot in front of the other.

Finally and most important - the people who live on the island of Char Andar, all the way in Southern Bangladesh - in the Bay of Bengal. They have very little to be thankful for - other than for just being alive - surviving the storm.

I hope they know somehow, I will never forget the day I met them, Thanksgiving Day, 2007.

-- From Cal Perry, CNN International Correspondent, in Bangladesh.

First a confession – just don’t tell the boss. I don’t care who wins the Australian election, although I think it’s a fascinating clash with implications particularly for the endless campaign in the US.

My first focus whenever I arrive in Sydney is simply to race to the harborside or the beach, and suck in a huge lungful of Australian coastal air. Say what you like about the Chinese economic miracle but to live in China, as I do, tends to bring home every noxious particle of its miraculous growth.

On the Australian coastline, where most of the continent’s population lives, it feels easy to be happy.

Which raises the first mystery of this Australian election. Economic growth has been churning along for more than a decade, largely fueled by funneling resources into the mighty engine of China. Almost every Australian has a job. Unemployment is at a generational low of barely 4% and getting lower.

Why change?

After eleven and a half years as Prime Minister, John Howard is urging voters to ask themselves the same question.

The latest polls show a tightening of sentiment, but the Labor Opposition is still the bookies’ favorite to form government once Saturday’s vote is counted. Some polls still put them nearly ten percentage points ahead.

The last time Labor toppled a conservative Coalition government was 1983. Ronald Reagan was still a first term president.

Such momentous changes – should they be confirmed by the voters - indicate something important. The Bill Clinton/James Carville mantra, taken up since by both sides, “It’s the economy, stupid” will have been turned on its head.

If that happens, climate change may emerge as a decisive issue. Indeed, global warming may have contributed for the first time ever to the toppling of a national government.

Of Australia’s two major parties, Labor has made climate change its issue. Howard’s coalition has been far too late to spot the danger.

Until recently, Howard enjoyed the sport of dismissing global warming as the obsession of a crackpot fringe. It left him flatfooted. His attempted re-positioning, promoting nuclear power as a potential answer, failed to grip in a country that currently has only a single research reactor. No-one has yet found a community keen to have one built down the road.

Now not just country areas, grappling with a record drought but middle class suburbanites fret over a warming planet. Already farms are reverting to deserts and urban water supplies are strained.

Veteran conservative commentator Piers Akerman says there is a warning here for US Republicans. “Climate change is definitely a vote winner with younger voters these days,” he says. “You must be aware of it and you must have a coherent policy to address it.”

Associate Professor Rodney Smith from the politics department of the University of Sydney goes further, saying the Australian experience is that it is not just young voters taking it up. Polls show it draws a strong response, he says, among older voters too. And it crosses traditional party lines.

Expect a scramble in conservative politics to reposition more convincingly. Less Bush, more Schwarzenegger.

As an Australian who no longer lives here, there is much to be proud about this country. The melding of so many nationalities is one great achievement, a process far more successful than is sometimes projected.

But it is the air and the water, the spectacular clarity that strikes every visitor, that is influencing this election. Perhaps after years of growth, Australians are expressing the truest conservativism of all: they like things as they are. They worry that change is coming. They are weighing their votes.

-- From Hugh Riminton, CNN International Correspondent, in Sydney.