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Kane talking about lying down in front of bulldozers.

Cliff-hanging off pali to find endangered plants.

Hippies living in remote valley of Kalalau

Green flanks, black teeth

Trail beside cliff that falls into ocean - Old Hawaiian man on horseback – seeing the hair in the water under the empty backpack

Story of Ko`olau & Pi`ilani – refuge- hanging valley – waterfall

Red dirt mud

Cycle of methane fuel production – anaerobic digester – methane –generator adapted to burn methane – electricity – heat byproduct –absorption chiller

Mud ditch and red dirt ribbon around the island

Ornellas – vicious/virtuous cycles – what is a balanced cycle?

Definition of agriculture enlarged to include all human activity? (Renewed) understanding of agriculture will only come through explaining connections, engagement, participation, holding stake. There is agriculture in astrophysics, agriculture in everything, can we remember in time? It's possible to be human without agriculture, but it's not possible to have a civilization without it, even just a village.

Mikinalo (carnivorous plant) and ohia makanoe

Smilax (hoe kuahiwi)

Can we remember in time?

 

Biofuels in Ka’u

Yesterday I went to a public presentation of a biofuels project in Pahala. A company called Aina Koa Pono wants to come into Ka'u and harvest biomass from 13,000 acres for a biofuel processing plant that will involve microwaves. The presentation was held at the Pahala Clubhouse, a graceful meeting space built during the plantation era. There were approximately 100 people there and two video cameras. It was a warm afternoon, and there were plenty of mosquitoes taking advantage of the crowd. The chief engineer Sandy (Alexander) Causey stood in front of the group and gave a fairly detailed explanation of the process by which the organic matter would be vaporized, filtered, re-vaporized and distilled into synthetic crude (aka biodiesel)l, kerosene (aka jet fuel) and gasoline. The byproduct of this process – char- would be put into a boiler to create electricity to run the plant. Everyone was very polite, but the questioning that ensued was decidedly skeptical in tone. Sandy Causey is not PR guy, which is a good thing for the people of Ka'u because they get to see what the real deal is on this project. To be blunt, there are big gaping holes in their business model as far as their agricultural/harvesting expertise. They really don't know what they are doing, especially in respect to the actual physical costs of growing and re-growing biomass. It's not something I hold against them very much. Ignorance of biological reality is rampant. On the other hand, ignorance does not inspire confidence. Is it okay for them to blunder into our neighborhood armed with a HECO contract, federal funding, and an amorphous plan? I really don't know. On the one hand, no one knows what they are doing when it comes to facing the transition from away fossil fuels on the ground level. We absolutely need to have alternative energy processes being developed, even if it not particularly efficient or knowledgeable production, just so that we can learn to be efficient. On the other hand, there is a good chance that the project will fail because of the project designers ignorance of some very basic realities of Ka'u, the kind of experience that regular people have, the ranchers, the farmers, the loggers, the bulldozer operators. Unfortunately that kind of experience does not seem to be getting into the spreadsheets for this project.

Reading: A World Made by Hand

Kunstler's novel is dystopian sci-fi of a different sort. Our more probable future, as is now apparent, will be one of devolution, rather than hyper-technology. If we come up with something along the lines of nuclear fusion, then we're on for R2D2 and the Death Star, but if not we're looking at a transition to the kind of neo-rural scenarios that Kunstler imagines. It's unclear whether he longs for or dreads it more. Me too.

Kunstler's novel is the story of the events of a few weeks in the town of Union Grove, in the vicinity of Albany, after the oil has run out, influenza epidemics have decimated the population, and bombs have destroyed Washington D.C and L.A. The electrical grid has gone down and central government has faded away. The town is on its own – for its food, fuel, shelter. Life reverts to the patterns of a 100 years ago, with the difference that people of the town are demoralized by the memory of how easy things were before.

At this point the odds are looking better for decentralization than world cities. We may lose some ground in the efficiency of production with decentralization but it is the lesser of two evils.

Eco-villages

I'm feeling very optimistic about the new year and the new decade which I've decided starts now, rather than a year ago. 2010 was the end of what we will call the George W. Bush decade (pace Obama) and look upon with wonder and a twinge of embarassment for decades to come. We have a saying in the horse-training world (where there is a high and immediate cost in physical pain for bad decision-making): "Good judgement comes with experience. Where does experience come from??? Bad judgement." So let's get on with it now that we tried all that and saw how it worked out for us. :)

I began the new year with a websearch (aren't we humans great, we have websearches!) which led me eventually to the concept of the Eco-village and it occurred to me that I don't live in an economically depressed rural backwater - I live in an eco-village. Well, really, an eco-district. Sure we all drive around in trucks that gobble diesel, use LPG, and have high rates of unemployment and drug use. I didn't say we were angels. But we have a thriving community spirit, close-knit 'ohana, mad gathering, hunting, and fishing skills, and an intense connection to our beautiful, tough, magnificent Aina. Ka'u has soul.