An Earth Day Summary

"When I was eighteen I was in an automobile accident and went through a near-death experience. I was actually taken away from the scene, presumed dead, and it wasn’t until I reached the hospital that the doctors revived my heartbeat and brought me back to life. This is the kind of experience that molds people’s beliefs. But I have found that most of my conclusions have evolved from observing life since that time. If I’ve come to know anything, it’s that these questions are as unknowable for us as they would be for a tree or for an ant."

- George Lucas, The Meaning of Life

Everything that I've written has come from a seed that sprouted while I lay face down in a growing pool of my own coagulating blood in the bottom of a fishing boat. "You're lucky, just one millimeter more..." said the surgeon. With death comes life, or something like that. 

Since it's Earth Day, (or, in 2015 terms #earthday) I woke up this morning feeling compelled to pull some type of tangible lesson from the 145 posts I've written. To try and understand for myself what I've been trying to say, here are some excerpts from the last four years of blogging:

In my first ever attempt at writing about myself, I recorded my initial thoughts regarding the accident and its implications on my psyche. In a feeling that I've long since forgotten, I wrote:

I could literally feel a wave of love connecting me to everyone and everything. Even though I was staring at the bottom of a boat, I felt as if it was the first time that I could really see. I know that we always have that ability, I'd just buried it underneath the rest of my life. But, once everything else crashed down in the face of death, it's all that was left. It's all that I wanted left and I was sad that I'd only just noticed. 

I then read Walden, built a Yurt, started a blog, and went off-grid. The idea, in Thoreau's words, was to "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life."

Periodically I would do my best to deconstruct the experience, my thoughts on sustainability, and my conflicted relationship to progress. Such as when we installed our water pump:

I went to sleep thinking that we'd finally reached the pinnacle of off-grid living and joined the ranks of the civilized. We had every amenity that you could ever hope for in a grid-tied house. But, something was wrong… Our barely dripping faucet used to be a constant reminder that we could live with less; that water pressure was a luxury that we didn't need… That water couldn't be rushed. That it would move with a pressure mathematically pre-determined by the height from the waterline in the catchment tank to our faucet. And there was no bending that.   

But, I did more than bend it. I took our laminar flow and cranked it up 700%. The roar of the shower and the kickback of our faucet are now reminders that, no matter how hard we try, we are not peacefully co-existing members of this Earth. We are hard-wired to lord over the elements and all of nature. 

The scary part is that I could undo all of it with a simple turn of three valves. Cut off flow to the pump and let gravity do its thing. But, there is no going back now. As much as my Thoreauean ideals tell me to turn it off, I can't do it. Something deep inside of me just woke up. And I can admit that I love my screaming pipes.

And then I took a life changing trip to Cambodia. As I wrote about in late 2013:

When we first started on this "path" I had some simple delusions. The goal was self sufficiency, so, in my mind, that meant put up solar panels, drink rain water, and grow food… I had this vision that within a few years I'd just walk into my yard for a bit of grazing when I got hungry. The vision was so strong that, for a moment, I thought I was a farmer…  

I don't think I've ever been more wrong on anything in my life… For the vast majority of human history people grew their own food. With access to the internet and some gas powered tools, how could I fail so miserably?…  

I was beginning to think that self-sufficiency was a pipe dream. Then we went to Cambodia, and my view of food was turned completely upside down. The country is nearly entirely agriculturally self sufficient. And you can see why from the instant you get off the plane.  

Every inch of land is cultivated… But, the biggest single difference is that nothing is wasted and everything edible is eaten. What we see as weeds are eaten. What we see as pests are eaten… I realized that my problem isn't that I'm a terrible gardener (which I am), it's that my relationship to food is skewed. I'm used to looking at food as it comes out of the grocery store: perfect, predictable, and plastic looking… 

Our acre is overflowing with food. Just not the food that I intended. I've been approaching the problem from the wrong end. I will continue to be an abysmal failure if I'm trying to replicate our current food system in my backyard, because it's not possible…

I expanded on this idea and tied it back to Kaua'i in my next post on our complicity in supporting unsustainable ag:

In order to transition to an island of sustainable local agriculture, we all have to be able to turn our back on the luxury of choice that a supermarket provides. In a supermarket there is no scarcity, there are no bumper crops, and there definitely are no seasons. That's not the case if you're growing your own food. You eat what you have and nothing else. And that is the most difficult step to take: to turn away from the culture of convenience that we've inherent from generations of refining the behemoth of industrial agriculture… 

Our problem on Kaua'i is compounded by the fact that land is incredibly expensive. The county encourages (through taxation) developers to purchase ag land, split it up, and sell it as a neighborhood or luxury estates… Unless you're independently wealthy or just insanely committed to growing food, there's no reason to not make a small windfall by subdividing your land. We have done everything we can to disincentives the growing of food while incentivizing development….  

… I believe that the only way that we can make progress in creating a truly sustainable food system for Kaua'i is by acknowledging our own complicity in the complex web of industrial agriculture and pushing our policy makers to incentivize local farming. At the end of the day, farmers need adequate compensation for providing us with food, and we as consumers need to give it to them.

As I was on the topic of complicity and the forces of the marketplace, I couldn't help but attempt to tackle capitalism in a post titled Stop Feeding the Beast. After an oversimplification of the complex market forces that dictate our lives, I wrote:

If capitalism is the beast, then we are fodder. We spend our lives at work so that we can convert our paychecks into manufactured goods. We complete the circle… As long as we keep consuming from unaccountable corporations, the ecocide will continue… the planet will continue to warm. All under the guise of progress.  

But, we do control the inputs. If I cut off water to my garden, the plants will wither. If we "opt-out" of the system, then we stop feeding the beast. We have options. Everytime we make a purchase we are choosing who we are working to support. Do we want to support a company that is legally bound to improving its bottom line for shareholders (any publicly owned corporation)? Or do we want to support a local artisan? Do we want to buy from the low-cost provider of food, or from the family down the road who has been farming the same piece of land for hundreds of years? Consumer choice is the greatest power that we have. By leveraging the power of choice, we can starve the beast and begin to balance out the power of corporations. 

Michel de Montaigne famously wrote: "If others examined themselves attentively, as I do, they would find themselves, as I do, full of inanity and nonsense. Get rid of it I cannot without getting rid of myself.” At this point in my writing I began to understand that my idealism wasn't going to solve anything. Co2 emissions are still rising. The quality of life on Kaua'i is continuing to get worse. Lihu'e is rapidly becoming an extended strip mall. Local agriculture is still declining. I realized that the art of rhetoric is self-centered "inanity and nonsense" if it fails to present viable solutions. I challenged myself to acknowledge my own idealism, to recognize the failures of that idealism, and to use that idealism coupled with its failures to present viable solutions. 

In that vein, I came out heavily in support of smart meters as a tangible solution to our energy crisis. I wrote this: 

…When oil was cheap, the effects of climate change unknown, and distributed PV (i.e. rooftop solar panels) nonexistent, the system worked perfectly. However, none of these are true anymore. We are beginning to the realize the true costs of oil and coal in the form of incessant foreign wars, climate change, pollution, oil spills, deforestation, and mercury poisoning… And, most disruptive to the model is the fact that anyone can install a photovoltaic panel on their house which promises to supply them with free electricity. These factors are quickly necessitating a paradigm shift in our utility model….

… We have a dwindling customer base which will result in either the utility going bankrupt (and not being able to maintain the grid) or the lowest income families being pushed into destitution with higher rates...  

The system is inherently flawed and bound to fail.   

In order to live within our means, we need to incentivize electricity when it's readily available (when the sun is shining) and discourage it when it's not. We have to change the way that we look at the flow of electrons. Instead of a one-way line from utility to us at a set price, we need to democratize or energy so that elections become a commodity which we buy, sell, and trade at a market price based on the current supply and demand. We can very quickly revolutionize our island by becoming fully participatory members of a completely distributed energy system. Our utility can transition from being an energy supplier, to being merely the middleman in a market of electrons. 

But it starts with smart meters…

And so began my first brush with controversy. In advocating for the first tangible solution of my entire blog, I became a "KIUC shill," or, even worse "that guy who doesn't like solar power." I could rant about the big picture evils of capitalism and how our food system is broken, and my readers could nod their head along in agreement. Yet, I opened Pandoras box by delving into the details. 

So, in my next post, I attempted to "distinguish between systemic change and mere patches to the system" and the interrelatedness of our deepest issues: 

...over development is related to a lack of available farm land, which is related to too much pesticides being sprayed, which is related to a dearth of affordable housing, which is related to extreme inequality. None of these issues can be addressed in a vacuum… and none of these issues will be addressed unless we all become active in advocating for sweeping and far reaching change.

Which brought me to one of the two most important posts I've ever written. In arguing for the merits of the horizontal well in Wai'ale'ale, I wrote that: 

Our relationship with nature is not black and white and our decisions can't be made in a vacuum. Humanity is pushing beyond the limits of Earth's support systems and we need to figure out a way to live within our means. That means framing our decisions based on the paradigm of reducing our impact on the planet by working towards sustainability and self sufficiency for our island. That needs to be the goal, and every decision needs to be weighed against that. We can't continue to say "no" (smart meters, Maha'ulepu dairy, HDD well, etc) without looking at the global impact of our current status quo.

And, from there I found my stride. I wrote about my dismay that the county continues to pursue a strategy for growth at all costs, despite increasingly dire warnings from the scientific community: 

We need to come to terms with the fact that unsustainable growth is the root of our problem. And that paradoxically we are making the planetary mistake of trying to solve that problem with even more growth. We need to start listening to the near unanimous advice of every scientific agency on the planet. We even need to heed the advice of the World Bank when they say that "the solutions lie in ensuring that all our work, all our thinking, is designed with the threat of a 4°C world in mind. 

In the vein of understanding our complicity, yet exploring solutions that reduce our impact on the planet, I wrote about the controversy behind the Maha'ulepu dairy in these terms: "We can externalize the environmental and ethical costs of milk production to distant lands, or we can do it at home and mitigate those real costs."

Next, in a post exploring the power of acknowledging our complicity, I clarified what I feel is the true failing of capitalism: 

Our failure isn't caused by incessant growth or a reliance on technology. We are failing because capitalism can not adequately value the environment. There is an intrinsic worth to nature which can not be quantified. Even if we try (as people are doing) to calculate the market value of a tree (such as calculating air/water purification, carbon sequestration, etc), it's not enough. It's like trying to quantify the value of your child's life or your family pet. You can't, and shouldn't do it. Putting a monetary value on a forest (or our climate, or a human life) only lends legitimacy towards cutting it down when the price of wood goes high enough, or when oil is found under it…. 

Because I am infatuated with the democratic process and believe in the power of dialogue to change society, I wrote about my hopes for the 2014 Kaua'i mayoral election as either: "an unprecedented opportunity for dialogue and engagement on Kaua'i's deepest issues. Or, we can continue with our current path, driving a deeper rift through the heart of our community because of an insistence on blind rhetoric; leaving us no closer to any solutions for our most pressing issues." 

And, in growing dismay as the conversation on Kaua'i devolved into emotional appeals over science, I wrote:

All science does is explain the world as it is. It has the dual power of muting irrational fears that are overblown, while amplifying rational fears that aren't being taken seriously enough (i.e. climate change). The job of politicians and policymakers is to take the objective findings of science and use them to create a better world. Yet, the constant barrage of emotional appeals at the expense of fact and logic end up shifting the entire political spectrum into fantasy land….

As Bill 2491 exploded, leading genetic modification to overshadow the real threats to local agriculture, I wrote that: 

… by focusing entirely on criticizing genetic modification, we are missing the opportunity to find real solutions to our most pressing agricultural issues. The valid arguments for increasing local food production and minimizing some of the harmful affects of industrial agriculture are overshadowed by heated argument over a breeding technique. We need to address the market failure that allows industrial agriculture to displace local food production.

And, because I often take myself too seriously, I wrote a satirical piece to expose my own hypocrisy in living off-the-grid. 

After feeding my chickens their daily allotment of organic pelletized corn and soy from the midwest, I harvest my breakfast tax of their newly laid unborn chicks. And so that our three humane society cats don't resort to eating our happy chickens, I feed them their "naturally formulated" diet of factory farmed chicken along with 64 other dehydrated ingredients that I can't pronounce.

In a departure from all of my previous writings, I wrote Asphalt Graves as an expression of grief for the steady degradation of Kaua'i. 

When the black dust fences come down, the sudden unveiling effectively erases our memory of the coconut grove that used to stand before. As the sadness and anger fade, we complete the story with our complicity. The next time I need new $3 slippers, I will park my truck on the asphalt graves of "exceptional trees," walk into the cold fluorescence and barely audible music of the polynesian themed CVS Longs Drugs, and retroactively sign the death warrant of 54 coconut trees as I hand the teller my money.

When an anonymous commentator called me out for my lack of vocal activism in regards to my lamentation over the CVS development, I wrote a post clarifying my position and concluded that:

The death warrant of the trees was a web of factors and I was forty-one years too late to testify. As much as I appreciate community activism and engagement, protesting the development or demonizing the land owners isn't a solution. This is a systemic issue with capitalism, planning ordinances, and tax policies at the heart. If we fight the symptoms without addressing the root, then we accomplish nothing except divisiveness.  

So, my solution? On a personal level, to limit my contribution to the endless growth paradigm of capitalism which necessitates development and, more specifically, to understand the system well enough to support political candidates who are dedicated to systemic change.

I jumped at an opportunity to take a tour of Pioneer Seed, and, in the realization that I'd had no idea what they actually did, I wrote a research based post on hybridization that, interestingly, ended up being the second most viewed post on my blog. 

And, finally, I come to the single most important post I've ever written. Climate Change: why I write. If you follow any link on this page, please make it this one. I did my best to summarize the science behind climate change and its possible effects on Kaua'i. 

The 2,795 gigatons that the fossil fuel companies have in reserves is nearly five times more than can be burned while staying below the 2 degree limit agreed upon by every nation on Earth… without government intervention or divestment, the fossil fuel companies are going to drive us to 6 degrees of temperature change...

The science of climate change necessitates a restructuring of our energy economy, the way we do business, and the role of government in our lives… 

In the spirt of climate change, and recognition of the fact that four times more people read my post on corn hybridization than global climate change, I wrote this:

On a local level, when the average Kauaian is struggling to pay their mortgage and afford groceries, who can blame us for not caring about climate change? Which is partly why (there are many other reasons, including basic morality) reducing inequality has to be the social priority of anyone who cares about preserving biodiversity and maintaining a planet conducive to human civilization.   

As voting middle class members of the wealthiest democracy on Earth, it's up to us to take stock of our privilege and step out of our comfort zones to start combatting the forces of climate change: consumerism fueled by laissez faire capitalism and social darwinism. To be a modern environmentalist means incorporating socialist ideology, as they go hand in hand. And any modern environmental movement that ignores the human aspect of our economic system is doomed to fail. 

In a bout of self reflection, I explained why the focus of my blog had changed from yurt-life to larger environmental and social questions:

… by focusing my writing on consumer choice and portraying a false glorification of our off-grid life, I was contributing to the schizophrenic inaction of local and national government which is fueled by our societal ambivalence (and periodic malice) towards politics. By gloating about living off-grid, I was saying "hey, look at my self-sufficiency! Look at what I can do without utilities or government, and you can do it too!"…  

I write about politics (and elements related to politics) because I understand the necessity of the process. I've stopped writing about the drudgery of my life because I understand the inherent cherry-picking hypocrisy of it. Any hope I hold out for systemic change towards social and environmental justice is reserved for government action-- not pseudo hipster/hippies raising chickens and living in yurts (in case you're offended by that description, I'm talking only about myself here).

While I continually tell myself to "write for yourself, not for others" I couldn't help but brood over the lack of hits that my previous post on climate change generated. In that mood, I wrote about how we've failed to frame climate change in a manner that creates effective solutions:

The biomess plant on the south side, the Anahola solar farm, Smart Meters, the Ferc Debacle, and the Wai'ale'ale horizontal well are all steps towards 100% renewable energy, yet all were met with organized community resistance. Our contribution to climate change forces us to analyze each of our energy decisions with the frame of: does this put us on the road to 100% clean energy? We don't have the luxury of continually saying no… 

Because I love to digress, I wrote my own story in The Death of Local Manufacturing:

Because our island home is incomparably beautiful, we're losing it. We have made tourism, and the low wage service jobs it provides, the back bone of our economy. Unlike O'ahu, which still has a diversified economy, Kaua'i is marketed as a place of resort communities where the vacation never has to end. Every high end land purchase pushes island-wide prices a little higher and we have crated a market field by overseas money that is nearly impossible for local people, with local jobs, to buy into. Industrial land (along with agricultural land) is competing against the gentrification/resortification of our island. And, in a story repeated throughout every desirable community in the country, gentrification always wins…  

Without adequate government intervention, the quiet totalitarianism of capitalism forces us to march in step with the invisible force of the market. Because if we don't, we get priced out of our island home...

The composites manufacturing of Kamanu Composites, LLC doesn't fit our island's limited industrial model. Resort communities need custom cabinet shops and granite counter tops, not outrigger canoes.  

In December, while sitting at the inauguration of Kaua'i's elected officials I was dismayed at the lack of a coherent vision for the future. I sat there in the audience trying to figure out the simplest way to communicate my disappointment in one sentence, and I doodled into my iPhone: "When fixing potholes becomes our government's main priority, then fixing government must become our main priority." The post that came out of it lamented that:

...when we give the market too much control to dictate our direction, as we are doing on Kaua'i, we lose the ability to foster diverse and viable alternative industries…

Continuation of the current status-quo means that life on Kaua'i will become progressively harder for local people to afford a home; it means continued and increasing dependence on tourism and resort development; it means that local agriculture will continue to decline; it means that local manufacturing will continue to look elsewhere; it means that we will continue to lose access to our natural resources; and it means that the only well paying jobs will continue to be off-island.

And, as a change of direction I shared something that my wife wrote while in college. Because it breaks the monotony of my own thoughts, and highlights the importance of cultural diversity and the power of language, it is my favorite post.  

Yup thats me… the one who can't speak your english.

Uh-huh, I lack the speech you speak the way you teach that shit to me. Oops, annoyed are we? At my pronunciation of your words, the words that also teach me to say "yes, sir," no, ma'am," or "may I" instead of "can I…. 

Yup this is me. A first generation/half Americanized, last generation immigrant of my family's misfortunes…

…so go on and re-read this for mistakes and grammar check, cuz all I have to say is: Yes, this is me, I can't speak english but I can speak.

After yet another climate change post, this one on the power of reforestation, I was criticized by an anonymous commentator for my own lack of conviction. And, I wrote a post on the moral mud of sustainability as an attempt to critique my own writing:

As I've written about before, the awareness of climate change forced me to adjust my perspective. My contribution to the problem wiped away my moral superiority. I, as everyone who lives in the developed world, am the problem. Living off-grid wasn't a solution and removing myself from society was even worse. As the hypocrisy of moral judgement fell out from beneath me, I was forced to re-evealute my entrenched positions. And my writing evolved from simple yurt building and tree planting to what it is today; a painful wade through the moral swamp land of sustainability. The journey of my thoughts are akin to the American pacifist in World War II who is suddenly aware of the horrors of the Nazi regime and who's entire life philosophy is suddenly thrown into question. The morality of abstaining from war is worse than entering the war, yet both are abhorrent. We don't have the satisfaction of choosing between good and evil, right and wrong: we have a slew of shitty options.

Normally when I write it feels as pointless, stilted, and painful as performing long division. However, I finally had some fun with a post when I wrote the Antidote to Becoming an Internet Asshole (something that I know all about). 

Thankfully the conversation had moved on and the sexually liberated high schoolers were now comparing the amount of Instagram followers they each had. All six of them finally lifted their downturned eyes away from their phones when one of the boys exclaimed with disgust that he just got a follow request from a girl who only has 70 followers of her own. "Ew" one of the other girls said, "you know dat Spenc get 10,000 followers? 'As why he get all da chicks." With her prophetic words hanging in the air, their heads went back down in unison to continue the hard cultivation of their online personas…  

The biggest transition that our island is facing isn't ag, hotels, or residential development-- it's our newfound ability to isolate ourselves into self contained opinion bubbles. Instead of the integration that made Hawai'i a melting pot and humility a way of life, our new digital separation makes empathy and compassion handicaps in the increasing fervor of our verbal warfare and simplified memes.

Recently, since I'm tired of my own opinion, I wrote a few research based posts on energy. The first was on Waste to Energy, where I wrote that:

… and there lies the problem with waste to energy: It incentivizes the creation of waste and disincentives recycling of plastic, cardboard, and composting… The County's Zero Waste Resolution and the current proposal are incompatible simply because following the resolution ensures that there won't be enough waste available to use as feedstock.

And then another one called Fanning the Flames of Waste to Energy about the politics behind the movement for a gasification plant on Kaua'i. And, while I've accepted that there is just a slim chance of the county pursuing the folly of waste to energy, I followed those two posts up with a true threat to a 100% renewable energy future: liquified natural gas. 

Because oil prices are higher here than the rest of the nation, Hawai'i is at the forefront of renewable energy integration. So, our experiences (successes and failures) have a disproportionately large impact on the world. As other utilities reach the same crossroads that we are at, they will look to Hawai'i for answers on how we're dealing with the renewable energy transformation. Which is why the decision on whether or not to double-down on fossil fuels is so important. LNG is the wrong answer for Kaua'i. Future investments, even if they cost more upfront, need to go towards renewable base-line energy sources such as pumped storage and hydro. If we can accept the basic science of climate change, then natural gas is a bridge to nowhere...

As the gold/blue dress took the internet by storm, and since I was on a streak of writing research based posts, I wrote Stop Trusting Your Intution:

Buried beneath the bullshit, the flaming arrows, and the moral mud are some truths. Sometimes they are aligned with our mental reasoning and sometimes they are not. The challenge is to go beyond our intuition to find those truths. And, in so doing, to get to some solutions… 

I am in a camp. I see blue and black. I voted for Obama, and I am pro-vaccine. But, when I see contrary evidence I have to force myself to step out of my mental comfort zone. It's what scientists, by definition, have to do. It's what a good journalist does. And it's what makes for effective leaders. Camps define us as human beings. They allow us to empathize with similar individuals and create cohesive tribes. But, our ability to step out of our individual camps and accept evidence, even when it assaults our subconscious, is what moved us from rain dances to meteorology and human sacrifices to modern medicine.

Finally, because the image of mainland celebrities with "We Are Mauna Kea" painted across their bare chests represented everything that I feel is wrong with mass movements, social media, and cultural genocide, the last post I wrote proclaimed:

No. I am not Mauna Kea. No matter how much I want to, or how many 'olelo Hawai'i classes I've taken, or how much I paddle outrigger canoe, there is a geneogolical divide that can not be bridged with a hashtag. Papa and Wakea are not part of my family's history. I was born on Kaua'i. I love Hawai'i. I know no other home and will never leave. But, I am not Hawaiian. In the dialogue over the Thirty Meter Telescope I have to recognize my own otherness because, as a resident of the State of Hawai'i, I am complicit in the colonization of Hawai'i… pretending that we're all Mauna Kea is just another form of colonial disempowerment. 

On a journey that began under a fishing boat in the Kaiwi channel, what have I learned over the last four years of attempting to live consciously? 

Nothing. 

On this Earth Day, all I can do is acknowledge my ignorance, my hypocrisy, and my complicity in the destruction of our only home. Every post I've written has taken me one step further down that path. To the readers of my blog, thank you for taking this journey with me.

As Albert Einstein said "The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.