Musings: Earthy

It's Earth Day – that time of the year when we're supposed to become more conscious of how we're trashing the planet with our greed, thoughtlessness and ravenous appetites, and then do something about it.

Here's my small contribution:

Committed to eliminating food waste, Earth Day, every day.

Though many greenies have taken a stance against GMOs, the technology has numerous environmental benefits. I recently wrote about a study published by agricultural economists at Purdue University, who found that:

Eliminating GMO commodity crops in America would significantly boost greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions and have other environmental and economic impacts.

The Purdue researchers found that yields of soy, corn, and cotton would decrease, requiring some 252,047 acres of U.S. forest and pasture lands to be converted to crop production to offset the shortfall. A reduction in the export of U.S. commodity crops would also increase demand for cropland in other nations.

Though Kauai Councilman Gary Hooser recently pooh-poohed the contribution of GMO corn at a UH law school forum on GMOs — “you can't feed the world on Sugar Pops and candy bars” — he doesn't seem to realize that maize, as it's called elsewhere, is a major food staple across the globe. South Africa alone is needing to import 1.5 million tonnes this year due to drought. Fortunately, we've got enough to send.

GM crops that resist insect infestations, like like Bt cotton, Bt corn and Bt eggplant, have also reduced the use of pesticides, especially in developing nations. 

Yet the chronically befuddled, like Hooser and Lihue resident Linda Boethe, continue to insist that seed companies are “drenching” Kauai with pesticides. In a letter to the editor today, Boethe tries to bolster her drenching claim with a revelation about seed company pesticide use in December 2013:

Syngenta applied 13 RUP’s (restricted use pesticides) totaling 213 gallons and 366 pounds to 1,200 acres. 81 gallons of product contained Chlorpyrifos and 245 pounds contained Atrazine. Dow Agro-Science applied 10 RUPs totaling 139 gallons to 873 acres. Dupont/Pioneer applied 13 RUPs totaling 66 gallons and 13 pounds to 1,000 acres.

If you look at the raw numbers, yeah, it's kind of scary. But if you do the math —assuming her figures are correct — we're talking roughly a pint per acre. The seed companies have offered the analogy of one soda can of product applied to a football field. Is that being "drenched?" As a friend noted:

Overall, there's no common understanding of what these figures represent. Until there is, the numbers spur chaos in a public argument. And that's another failing of the Joint Fact Finding report: It doesn't put the numbers into the context of generally accepted agricultural practices to promote broader understanding of what the seed companies, and other farmers, actually do.

What some Kauai County Councilmembers do, on the other hand, is pull strings to help friends. At the last Council meeting, JoAnn Yukimura disclosed that she's "crafting" an amendment to one of the two homestay/B&B bills before the Council, as outlined in this dialogue with her colleagues:

JY: I have an amendment, a rough draft, but I would prefer, because it is a tricky amendment, I mean it's taken a lot of thought and conferencing with the legal staff we have. I'd like to work on it further before introducing it.

Is this amendment you are working on related to grandfathering?

JY: No. I don't think "grandfathering" is an appropriate context. The amendment is to create a class based on a rationale basis that is a legitimate class under the law.

So you are working on an amendment to create a class, a specific class that would allow for the planning commission to review applications for B&Bs outside of the VDA (visitor destination areas)?

JY: For a very small number of people that have been paying taxes since 2008, and have -- and have applied for home-stays.

You said it's not about grandfathering.

JY: Yes, because grandfathering... requires that the use was legal prior to being made illegal. That is not the circumstance we have here.

JoAnn is correct. The circumstance we have here is that a number of persons have been operating illegal B&Bs for more than a decade. The planning department has shut them down, and some are about to be hit with criminal charges. But JoAnn wants to let the scofflaws off the hook, give them preferential treatment, let them go on while others are denied the opportunity to operate.

As another friend observed:

Is this crafted or crafty legislation?

I'd go with crafty. Sleazy. And really inappropriate. Hasn't JoAnn learned anything from her earlier vote to legitimize all the illegal TVR owners, while burning those who had obeyed the law? 

Still, I imagine the amendment would come in really handy for Alexis Boilini — one of the aforementioned scofflaws who is now trying to sell her property for a cool $2.35 million. Perhaps so she'll have more time to spend at her Costa Rica B&B?