Monday, September 27, 2010

Musings: Cycling Through

The moon, still big, though waning, led the way as Koko and I went out walking this morning while bright stars — Sirius and Betelgeuse among them – had our back. Before us, the clear summit of Waialeale was outlined against the pale blue of the pre-dawn sky as behind us, clouds slowly poured in over the Giant. It was totally still, without a hint of wind, and the grass was thick with dew.

“Do I denote a change in the temperature, the season?” asked farmer Jerry when I encountered him along the road. I agreed that it had indeed turned quite chilly since we passed the fall equinox.

He’d just come a round of meetings, including the two-day Hawaii Agriculture Conference, that had kept him indoors for several days. “It does something to you when you spend so much time inside,” he said, and from the grimace on his face, and my own experience, I knew it wasn’t something good.

He’d found the conference interesting, though he said it underscored his own assessment of the situation in Hawaii: “We have this land, but no farmers. Nobody wants to farm unless they’ve never done it before and think it sounds like fun.”

As a result, the conference attracted a lot of folks with ideas about how things should be done, but no real practical experience or time on the land. Jerrry and some of the other longtime farmers are particularly skeptical of the push toward bioenergy products, especially the Navy’s plan to fuel its ships with stuff grown here. First, they don’t believe Hawaii can compete against states with a lot of acreage in production, like Iowa and Nebraska. Second, many of the proposed biofuel crops are invasives, which pose their own problems and risks. And third, , they don’t want to see energy crops being cultivated at the expense of food.

As Henry Curtis noted in his excellent, and thorough, coverage and analysis of the conference for Disappeared News:

There is tension between the Hawai`i farming and bioenergy communities. This tension erupted two years ago when DBEDT encouraged the bioenergy to go after Hamakua land.

[Big Island] Senator [Russell[ Kokubun [a former farmer]: “The emphasis on clean energy, particularly by the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative I think also creates overzealousness, let's put this that way, I think, it's not necessarily a bad thing but, we need to be very careful in our approach to ensure that agriculture meaning food production agriculture is not lost in the discussion about alternative energy agriculture. ...


As a result of that tension, Henry reports, the Legislature adopted a bill that requires a public hearing on the affected island whenever a bioenergy project is proposed for state lands. The governor vetoed the bill, but the Lege overrode it, so at least citizens can be involved in the process.

Shifting gears, a friend who was out at Kalalau this past weekend told of seeing camps that had been destroyed by DLNR, but the stuff was just left there. Guess the much-vaunted clean up has not yet been completed. He also encountered one camper in the valley who had apparently been missed in the recent sweep of “feral people.” My friend was especially interested to discover that the guys doing the rock removal were brought in from the mainland. So much for supporting the local economy and cultural sensitivity...

I was talking to another friend the other day about a visit from her aged parents. She hadn’t seen her dad in 10 years and was struck to find him smaller, frailer and sleeping a lot, which prompted her teenaged daughter to draw parallels to the young baby in the house.

“We do go backwards,” my friend said, which made me recall how the last time I saw my mother, I’d washed her hair and dried her skin, tugged sox onto her feet, slipped a shirt over her head, pulled up her pants over a diaper. Though her mind was still sharp, she’d regressed physically to a large toddler.

We’re all cycling through life, just like the changing seasons.

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

Seems silly to complain that bio fuel will use ag land when so much ag land goes unused as it is. Obviously there is more than enough ag land. Too much, probably.

Anonymous said...

silly to complain that bio fuel will use ag land when so much ag land goes unused as it is.

Yes. Landowners are in a much better position to know the best use of their land than the government "experts." The red tape these people throw up!

Anonymous said...

I know. They talk about "our Ag Lands" as though it wasn't somebody's private property.

Anonymous said...

Yes. Landowners are in a much better position to know the best use of their land than the government "experts." The red tape these people throw up!

September 27, 2010 9:56 AM

yes, grove farm knows exactly what their land is worth and what it would be good for - heard of their retail/residential project on ag land?

Anonymous said...

yes, grove farm knows exactly what their land is worth and what it would be good for - heard of their retail/residential project on ag land?

Good for them. Obviously they know best what it should be used for. If it was more valuable as farm land they'd farm it or sell it someone who would. It's silly to take land completely out of use because of some ideologically driven hyped up fetish about farming. If it doesn't pay to farm it, then do something else useful with it like building residential and business.

Anonymous said...

They talk about "our Ag Lands" as though it wasn't somebody's private property.

A lot of it isn't. It's state lands and ceded lands.

Dawson said...

"Good for them. Obviously they know best what it should be used for. If it was more valuable as farm land they'd farm it or sell it someone who would. It's silly to take land completely out of use because of some ideologically driven hyped up fetish about farming. If it doesn't pay to farm it, then do something else useful with it like building residential and business."

Exactly. The definition of "what's the best use," of course, is "what makes Grove Farm Corporation the most money in the shortest time" -- the history, heritage and future of the land, and of anyone not directly connected with the Grove Farm Corporation, be damned.

Anonymous said...

USE USE USE.......ugh......let's allow the animals and insects to weigh in on this one. Hone up on your listening skills.....

Anonymous said...

September 27, 2010 7:25 PM

exactly

Anonymous said...

Good for them. Obviously they know Comments like this are from people who forget conveniently that we have zoning
"best what it should be used for. If it was more valuable as farm land they'd farm it or sell it someone who would. It's silly to take land completely out of use because of some ideologically driven hyped up fetish about farming. If it doesn't pay to farm it, then do something else useful with it like building residential and business"
When you own or buy ag land, it is governed by the laws and rules of agriculture. No, you cannot just decide you could make moe money by building a development. Of course, the LUC can be petitioned to change the designation ,it's not just about how much money YOU can make.

Anonymous said...

Notice that Dawson's comment contains not one single fact. Just more knee jerk regurgitation of his party line.

Anonymous said...

"We do go backwards." Is that a hint at de-evolution? It's not "backwards", it's evolution. All creatures birth, grow, peak in certain aspects (physical before mental), and then KEEP evolving to the point of death. One does not de-volve, as it were :)

Joan Conrow said...

Thanks. I'm intrigued by the concept of evolving toward death.

Anonymous said...

"Notice that Dawson's comment contains not one single fact."

Unlike your well-documented contribution.

Anonymous said...

Thanks. It is an interesting concept, evolution towards "death". In many cultures, it's evolution towards the "next life"..Buddhism, etc.

Per de-evolution, that is a biological fallacy. It assumes that evolution itself is a linear progression to advancement only. When related to humans, we consider "middle age" as that fallacious peak from where we "devolve" back to infants. It is good fodder for comedians (babies and adults in diapers) but wrong: we may decrease in certain complexities, but always evolve, mentally and physically, until death.

Anonymous said...

Um, first of all, there is in biology no assumption that evolution itself is a linear progression to advancement only. Second, there is no concept in biology or any other science that humans in any way or on any level devolve back into infants. That is a purely literary device having nothing whatsoever to do with science. It's a movie plot, not a scientific theory.

Anonymous said...

however, it is certainly possible in a social-cultural-political way that mankind can "evolve" into extinction.

we're circling the drain now, folks. I don't believe there's a solution. Just a matter of time.

Anonymous said...

however, it is certainly possible in a social-cultural-political way that mankind can "evolve" into extinction.

we're circling the drain now, folks. I don't believe there's a solution. Just a matter of time.


Sounds to me like you're just replacing an outmoded religion-based apocalyptic belief with a pseudo-scientific sounding one. The more interesting question is why some of our species throughout our history have been genetically predisposed to believe in the inevitability of apocalyptic scenarios. (Saying this, I understand you would likely respond that inevitable extinction is self-evidently a certainty, or at least nearly so. And to that I would still be left wondering why you are genetically predisposed to think so).

Anonymous said...

September 28, 2010 9:11 AM

we are all on the road to somewhere - inevitably it all leads to the same place.

Anonymous said...

"...I would still be left wondering..."

The same could be said of those in whom hope springs eternal in spite of all the historical and current evidence.

Embrace the horror.

Anonymous said...

The same could be said of those in whom hope springs eternal in spite of all the historical and current evidence.

The historical evidence shows a constant stream of premature true believers in mankind's own self-annihilation who have always thought the evidence was irrefutable. Actually, their belief is no more reasonable or rational that those who believe contrariwise that everything will inevitably turn out just peachy.

Anonymous said...

The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

http://www.amazon.com/dp/006145205X?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwviolentkicom

From Publishers Weekly
Ideas have sex, in Ridley's schema; they follow a process of natural selection of their own, and as long as they continue to do so, there is reason to retire apocalyptic pessimism about the future of our species. Erstwhile zoologist, conservationist, and journalist, Ridley (The Red Queen) posits that as long as civilization engages in exchange and specialization, we will be able to reinvent ourselves and responsibly use earthly resources ad infinitum. Humanity's collective intelligence will save the day, just as it has over the centuries. Ridley puts current perceptions about violence, wealth, and the environment into historical perspective, reaching back thousands of years to advocate global free trade, smaller government, and the use of fossil fuels. He confidently takes on the experts, from modern sociologists who fret over the current level of violence in the world to environmentalists who disdain genetically modified crops. An ambitious and sunny paean to human ingenuity, this is an argument for why ambitious optimism is morally mandatory.

From Booklist
Science journalist Ridley believes there is a reason to be optimistic about the human race, and he defies the unprecedented economic pessimism he observes. His book is about the rapid and continuous change that human society experiences, unlike any other animal group. Ideas needed to meet and mate for culture to turn cumulative, and “there was a point in human pre-history when big-brained, cultural, learning people for the first time began to exchange things with each other and that once they started doing so, culture suddenly became cumulative, and the great headlong experiment of human economic ‘progress’ began.” Participants in the exchanges improved their lives by trading food and tools. Ridley believes it is probable that humanity will be better off in the next century than it is today, and so will the ecology of our planet. He dares the human race to embrace change, be rationally optimistic, and strive for an improved life for all people. --

Anonymous said...

Sure. And jumping up just as your elevator crashes in the basement from a 20 story fall will save you.

Anonymous said...

It does if you only imagine your elevator is crashing.

Anonymous said...

but not if it really is

Anonymous said...

if you're genetically inclined to think it is...

Anonymous said...

A genetic inclination toward "reality". Sounds great to me!

Anonymous said...

This is just a "glass half full/glass half empty" thing.

To each his own. The eventual outcome will not be influenced by these individual opinions nor actions taken.

Anonymous said...

But what if the glass was broken?