Summer's Over

SUBHEAD: Another season has passed as we tip into the darkening side of the year.
 

By Juan Wilson on 11 November 2021 for IslandBreath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2021/11/summers-over.html)


Image above: Fall colors at peak in mid Atlantic states two weeks ago. From (https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/09/30/heres-when-fall-foliage-will-peak-around-dc/).

For some people this last year has been a blessing, not a curse. I know there has been suffering... there always is in a pandemic. However, here on Kauai the impact of Corona Virus was largely mitigated by our County and State government closing down much of commercial tourism. On one hand, some people have lost jobs and are burdened by debt they cannot avoid. On the other hand things on Kauai went back to being more local and independent.

I have see more local people fishing and gathering along the shore. There has been less car traffic at the beach and less suntan lotion floating in the water. There have been mornings with just a couple of people swimming at our Salt Pond Beach Park. slowly, the wave of rental cars is resurging. 

But my sense is that the real hangover from the pandemic and the the collapse it has generated is just beginning... and that is okay... or at least sufferable.  But with over 8 billion of us there are too many people are groping for a mansion on a cul-de-sac.  The idea that humans can go on reproducing and consuming at the same rate for another generation does not look realistic. It's not a situation of the more people the merrier. What we need more of is more elephants, whales and eagles.

In the case of all the great apes (our closest cousins) there are a total of about 500,000 total. The Great Apes include all the gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and bonobos in the world. Humans are just one branch on that tree... That means there are more than 16,000 times as many humans than all the other great apes we share our traits with.

Not only that, but we take a much larger share,  individually, of the all the resources of the world - land, water, timber, etc.  

The solution... step back, take less, do less, travel less, eat less, buy less, spawn less. Walk more, talk more, make more, share more, grow more, love more. Buy used and refurbished. 

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Uncomfortable Truth about Hawaii

SUBHEAD: The illegal takeover of the Hawaii was an act of war and never resolved with peace.

By Keanu Sai on 16 August 2018 for University of Hawaii -
(https://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2018/10/uncomfortable-truth-about-hawaii.html)


Image above: Still frame from video of  Na Moolelo Lecture Series lecture at University of Hawaii-Windward Community College. See below.

[IB Publisher's note: A mahalo to Craig Davies, of Kauai, for the link to this lecture on Hawaiian history and loss of independence.]

Dr. Keanu Sai is a political scientist specializing in international relations and public law, as well as a faculty member at the University of Hawaii-Windward Community College and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Hawaii College of Education.

He addressed the concept of “act of war,” as well as its implications and consequences in the context of international law. The discussion, “An Uncomfortable Truth: Hawaii has been in a State of War with the United States since 1893,” took place on June 13.

Na Moolelo Lecture Series: The Na Moolelo Lecture Series is an opportunity for the public to learn from Hawaiian cultural experts, historians and other museum professionals who prompt discussion of Hawaiian history and culture as well as museum practices.

The free series supports Iolani Palace’s mission to preserve and share Hawaii’s unique cultural and historical qualities with the community.


Video above: Still frame from video of lecture "An Uncomfortable Truth: Hawaii in a State of War" by Dr. Keanu Sai.

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The Off-Grid Poster Child

SUBHEAD: After the disaster of hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico is ripe to be the place to find stand-alone off-grid living.

By Juan Wilson on 20 September 2018 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2018/09/off-grid-poster-child.html)


Image above: Electricity poles and lines lie toppled on the road after Hurricane Maria hit the eastern region of Puerto Rico. Photo: Carlos Giusti. From (https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-truth-about-hurricane-maria-1537129890).

Well before hurricane Maria devastated the island of Puerto Rico on 20 September 2017 the infrastructure of the power grid had deteriorated to the point of fragility not seen elsewhere in America.

That grid was the responsibility of The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA). PREPA is a government-owned corporation of Puerto Rico responsible for electricity generation, power distribution, and power transmission on the island. Hurricane Maria demonstrated that PREPA was a failure and that it would not have the vision or resources needed to serve Puerto Rico.

Without the resources to repair what had been a frail and failing system, Maria provided a death blow to PREPA. The Puerto Rican people tuned to gas operated electrical generators that had been purchased by people who could afford them for the frequent PREPA blackouts. After Maria things got nasty. Neighborhoods strung extension cords between homes in suburban neighborhoods. They got by with less.

There were some isolated small scaled solar photo-voltaic electric systems in place - and they became important. The Wall Street Journal reported (https://www.wired.com/story/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-recovery/):

In the town rural town of Adjuntas, nestled in the mountains about an hour and a half southwest of San Juan, an NGO dedicated in part to solar power, called Casa Pueblo, became a pillar of the local recovery. 

When the town’s 18,000 residents were cut off from the rest of the island after Maria, the NGO’s solar-­powered radio helped authorities find out which roads were clear and which families were in danger, and attend to emergencies when the central government and federal authorities were not yet responding. 

Casa Pueblo subsequently gave out some 14,000 solar-powered lamps and also offered a solar-charged satellite phone at its offices for locals to use. At any given time, five to 10 people waited to make a call.

Arturo Massol, the associate director of Casa Pueblo and an ardent evangelist for decentralized, renewable energy, described what was happening on the island as “an energy insurrection.” Ordinary Puerto Ricans, he said, had woken up to the fact that when it came to electricity, they would have to look for alternatives.

This is part of a real solution. But that is not the direction that Puerto Rico is going. Instead the US government is planning on financing the privatization of PREPA through the creation of the “Puerto Rico Energy Transformation Administration (PRETA) that would provide guarantees (with US tax payer's money) for private energy corporations to rebuild the Puerto Rican grid. According to Debt Wire (https://www.debtwire.com/info/prepa-federalization-draft-bill-floating-congress)

Still in rough draft form, a bill tentatively titled the “Puerto Rico Energy Stabilization and Hurricane Resiliency Act of 2018” delineates specific steps to have the federal government—via the DOE—take over PREPA, impose a temporary administrator to supersede Puerto Rico’s Energy Commission ratemaking power, establish a corporation to issue restructuring bonds, and create special investment assurance accounts as part of the utility’s ongoing privatization process.

Here on Kauai the failure of privately owned Kauai Electric took a different but similar turn.

Those with long memories know what happened when the privately owned Kauai Electric called it quits. We paid off the "stake holders" a couple hundred million dollars of borrowed money to create a the debt ridden Kauai Island Utility Cooperative (KIUC). We now pay about the highest rates in the country.

Like Puerto Rico, Kauai is a stand alone grid on an isolated island. What energy it produces is all the energy it will have available. To its credit, KIUC has aggressively been adding solar voltaic power generation capacity. But it has not encouraged Solar PV stand alone systems.

Instead it encourages "co-generation"... the placement of PV systems on individual homes to supplement KIUC power generation. Co-gen certainly can reduce KIUC's high price for grid power, but it is, by my observation,  no real incentive to reduce power consumption.

Co-gen also means some resilience capability if the grid goes down because of a natural disaster, electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) or other disaster.

But KIUC suffers from the same vulnerability that Puerto Rico faced when Maria struck. All the power distribution is provided by poles and large hurricane can knock those poles down like a house of cards. That happened on Kauai with hurricane Iniki in 1992. But instead of burying the power distribution lines (as is done in most modern community planning) Kauai Electric simply re-erected the old creosote soaked wooden power poles.

Stand alone solar power systems have several advantages if they are not backed up by a electric grid or fossil fuel powered generator.

• They absolutely limit the consumption of power to the amount of energy collected from the sun.
• They require customer awareness of usage and some maintenance encouraging greater self reliance.
• They reduce overall power consumption by high energy appliances like microwave ovens or air compressors.
• They are resilient in that only the minority of systems that are hit directly by a disaster are damaged.
• They wean us from living outside the limitations of energy not supplied by nature where you live.  

What we found was that having multiple independent stand alone PV systems is a real advantage. We stumbled into that situation by slowing adding systems over time. We started with a single panel and added increasingly bigger systems over almost a decade as we gained experience and knowledge.

All our systems use an array of one of two battery types. One type are high capacity 12volt 110amp-hour lead acid deep cycle batteries available on Kauai. The other type are 6v 405 amp-hour AGM (absorbant glass mat) batteries.

There are two AGM systems.

One is attached to our circuit breaker panel-box. This is where KIUC used to hook up. We had KIUC come and take off the meter and wiring to our house. This systems powers all the switches and outlets built into the house.

The second AGM system is attached to a power inverter providing energy for our new refrigerator and freezer. See (http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2018/09/freezers-up-and-running.html).

The five other systems are smaller for specific tasks using smaller power inverters.

• One provides counter lighting and strip outlets for our kitchen as well as our guest bathroom.
• A second one provides lighting and a power strip to our master bedroom and its bathroom.
• A third one provides lighting and a power strip  (for tool battery charging) in shop/utility room.
• A fourth provides power for and office computer, wifi system and small appliance batteries.
• A fifth provides power to a stand-alone shack that serves as a guest house. 

This overlapping redundancy has proved to be valuable. Any one system can go down and we can work around the problem by switching plugs in outlets and/or swapping around compatible batteries.

Redundancy is good. We had a neighbor who went with KIUC co-gen. After about a year the single co-gen system inverter failed and her solar panels were providing nothing to reduce her energy bill. The installer claimed it was out of warranty and not their problem. It took over year to get the system up and working agian.

Looking to the future my advice, as usual, is learn to and act to:

• Grow your own food
• Collect your own water
• Produce your own energy
• Make and repair what you can.

The alternative is sitting around a fire with pointy sticks.

A trashcan of canned food

SUBHEAD: When the SHTF and the supermarkets sold out this will get you through the worst of it.

By Juan Wilson on 23 July 2018 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2018/07/a-trashcan-of-canned-food.html)


Image above: Galvanized garbage can used to store canned food in outdoor conditions out of the rain. Photo by author.

Living in rural Hawaii we can year round grow fruits and vegetables for our table. We also can provide ourselves with all the eggs (and more) that we need with eight hens in a 4'x16' henhouse.

We are not vegetarians. Our fruit, vegetable and eggs are vital to us but we continue to rely on other sources for much of our protean.

Although we occasionally eat one of our hens when they stop laying, we are not yet raising fish, birds or mammals for dinner table. We rely on others for our fresh fish, poultry and meat.


In our garage is a steel galvanized garbage can. It is filled with canned food.


Image above: Inside the trashcan we keep canned food. Mostly items with hearty content, high in protein. Photo by author.

The meat in cans includes Spam (pork); corned beef hash, corned beef, canned roast beef; canned chicken, canned tuna, canned sardines, canned kippers (fish); soups including clam chowder, turkey rice, pea soup with ham. In addition we keep canned pinto, black, garbonzo and kidney beans; canned beef and chicken broth, and canned whole tomatoes for mixing with fresh vegetables.

With these canned items we also combine rice, rice pasta and also yard grown breadfruit, cassava or taro to create filling savory meals with plenty of protein - without having to throw a steak on the BBQ.

When our trashcan is filled there is enough food to stretch our "food independence" to a few months.

Image above: These foods are not just to get us through a disaster. We incorporate small amount of them into our regular cooking routines allowing us to get some experience getting the best out of them - before having to depending on them. Photo by author.

It should be added that this cache of food needs to maintained and refreshed over time. Even though many items are good for years we keep an eye on expiration dates and eat down (and replace) those items we feel need to be replaced.

We do not buy and store fresh water. We use filtration on water and have 1,500 gallons of water stored from a well and rain catchment system. We avoid packaged frozen "TV" dinners and freeze dried military style MREs.  They are too costly and unpleasant to eat.

We find it better to mix canned products with our own own fresh produce.


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Get in the lifeboat now!

SUBHEAD: There is not much time left to find a way off this sinking ship. Find a seat soon.

By Juan Wilson on 19 June 2018 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2018/06/get-in-lifeboat-now.html)


Image above: Abandoning the Costa Concordia that capsized and sank in 2012 off Isola del Giglio, Tuscany, Italy. From (https://paullaherty.com/2015/01/05/lessons-from-the-costa-concordia/).

I know it's comfy in the First Class State Room on A Deck but that won't be for long. As Americans we've grown accustomed to having "the best". However, now in the first part of the 21st century we are beginning to realize that we all are not "on board". An increasing number are in steerage... already below the waterline.

People around the world in places that have been trashed by over population, war,  bad agriculture, eco-collapse and fanaticism have been rushing to the exits - primarily to Western Europe, America, Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world held together by some combination of modern technology, advanced military, historic plunder, natural resources  and/or isolation.

Those "safe havens" likely won't be able to handle the additional load. This is particularly true if those escaping intend to live in the style that "western civilization" has become accustomed:

Automobiles for everybody, highways to everywhere; universal electric grid, internet, and cell service; air conditioning, refrigeration, supermarkets, frozen food;  jet travel and fresh fruit on the table from another hemisphere, next day Amazon delivery service - total security... etc.

Those services cannot be provided for the eight billion people that inhabit the planet now. At this point of degradation of the ecosystem it is probably not possible for even a tenth of that number. That's about what the population of the world was when America became nation independent in 1776.

Basically, this human population explosion is a function of the consumption of fossil fuels. See the chart below:


Image above: World population from US Census Bureau inj blue, overlaid with fossil fuel use (red) by Vaclav Smil from Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, Prospects. From "Human Population Overshoot: What Went Wrong?"2/15/12 (https://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/02/15/human-population-overshoot-what-went-wrong/).

What is the solution?
Back away from your dependence on fossil fuel (and all that it supports) as soon as you can. Make your life livable (and hopefully enjoyable) off the grid as soon as you can. Get in a lifeboat now! By that I mean have at your immediate disposal a place where you can survive, and even thrive, without dependence on "The Mother Ship" (The System, The Grid, Civilization, the United States of America. etc.).

There is no time for any delay. My wife and I have been working towards this goal for over a decade and we are not quite there. If the container ships and tankers were to stop coming to Hawaii we would face drastic changes, but likely our homestead could support human habitation.

Are you in such a place now? If the lights go out can you be in such a place securely within a couple of days? I say that because that is about as long as most people have the resources at hand to survive.

For starters, you will need your own sources for water, food, energy and shelter.

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Settling into a Collapse Rant 11/15/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Oases on a future Eaarth 6/28/15
Ea O Ka Aina: Tales of a Dark Kauai 5/23/14
Ea O Ka Aina: The New Game 11/10/13
Ea O Ka Aina: Food, Water, Energy & Shelter 1/31/13
Ea O Ka Aina: The Titanic or Noah's Ark 3/4/12
Ea O Ka Aina: The Hero's Way 1/13/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Time to Stop Pretending 4/27/11
Ea O Ka Aina: All Aboard 12/9/09
Ea O Ka Aina: Here the Deal!  7/5/09
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Hawaiian yearning for Polynesia

SUBHEAD: Polynesian subsistence use of the land and sea resources may conflict with "independence". 

By Brittany Lyte on 19 July 2017 for Explore Parts Unknown -
(https://explorepartsunknown.com/hawaii/a-yearning-for-old-polynesia-overshadows-native-independence/)


Image above: Aerial view of the south eastern shore of Molokai showing fishponds and seaside living typical to the area. From original article.

[IB Publisher's note: Yes... many paradoxes exist between what is desired and reality. It is our opinion is that the schemes to "recognize" the "Hawaiian Independence" through Hawaiian State and US Federal designated efforts will only end in the kind of mess native Americans face on "tribal lands" on the mainland. The United States has made only one seemingly genuine effort in the last generation to heal the wounds of the illegal take-over of the Hawaiian nation - The Apology Bill under the 103d Congress Joint Resolution 19 on Nov. 23, 1993 United States Public Law 103-150 "To acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the January 17, 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, and to offer an apology to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii."In that resolution were described mechanisms that Hawaiians could recover their nations sovereignty. However, some Hawaiians do not think the limitations of that legislation define the parameters of return of our sovereignty. Eventually the imperial US oppression will recede as the empire fades.]

If you wanted to eat, you had to work. That’s how Kaui Kapuni Manera was raised on the Hawaiian island of Molokai in the 1960s.

As one of seven children brought up by her grandparents, Manera contributed to every meal by scouting for fish, gathering edible seaweed or harvesting from the star fruit, guava, and breadfruit trees that grew in abundance on the family’s two-acre plot edging the sea.

“When momma said ‘go out there and get lunch’ she meant it,” remembers Manera, now 61. “If she told us to go out and pick limu, it was an all-day job. If we walked to the school, we were expected to carry oranges home in our shirts.

Even when we were playing, we were gathering. I used to grumble, ‘How come we can’t have canned Spam like the other kids?’”

It wasn’t until the family dinner started to include those fashionable Spam cans that Manera realized she lived in poverty.

“When my grandfather passed away, there was no one to raise the pigs or harvest the taro patch anymore,” Manera says. “My grandmother was blind, and we were just kids. So we started getting food stamps.

And that’s when we started to go to the market. That’s when we finally got to have Spam. That’s when I really understood that we weren’t going to eat as good anymore. Yes, we were poor, but, in other ways, living off the land had made us really rich.”

Once an object of yearning, Spam became a flag of the shame born of needing U.S. government assistance. Nevertheless, Manera savored the salty meat that replaced her grandfather’s hand-pounded poi and fresh-caught fish.

“I’m grateful that the government kicked in,” says Manera, who is Native Hawaiian. “I was embarrassed at the time, but now I know that’s the only way we survived.”

On Molokai, where more than 60% of the island’s 7,400 residents are of Native Hawaiian descent, a longtime rejection of Americanization and urban development has kept alive a way of life that closely resembles that of traditional Polynesia.

And because Molokai has fewer visitors than any other Hawaiian island, as well as the largest indigenous population in the state, it is one of the only places where the authenticity of Old Hawaii is said to still exist.

Of course, when you reject modernization, you risk limiting economic growth. Today, on this island without traffic lights, the trade-off of a simple, down-home lifestyle that’s still largely intact is that good work is hard to find.

An island-wide job shortage, coupled with the reality that many of the jobs that do exist fail to offer a livable wage, has bred a generation that relies on a combination of government assistance and traditional subsistence living practices to get by.

“A lot of Hawaiians who depend on government assistance are pissed because it doesn’t provide a great life, and a lot of the Hawaiians who don’t are pissed because it’s hard to get on without it,” Manera says.

“Everyone’s so pissed today, and I was angry for so long, and now I just don’t want any part of it. I don’t want that anger in my house, I don’t want that anger in my family. I just want to work hard and nurture and perpetuate what we are as Hawaiians.”

This is the backdrop to which a fiery political debate over Hawaiian sovereignty is erupting. Indeed, the debate has been flaring since the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. government.

What’s different now is that Native Hawaiians are for the first time being presented with a new means of attaining some degree of political autonomy.

In September 2016, Native Hawaiians won access to a new process by which the United States would form a government-to-government relationship with a unified Hawaiian nation.

Previously unavailable to indigenous Hawaiians, this brand of quasi-sovereignty through federal recognition has long been employed by Native Americans and Alaska Natives to bolster the political power of tribal nations.

A shot at federal recognition is something that some Native Hawaiians have been fighting for—and other Native Hawaiians have been fighting against—for a very long time. Whether they’ll seize it, and how it might serve to ameliorate some of the injustices the Native Hawaiian community has endured in the last century, is yet to be seen.

“People come here to see rainbows and jumping whales, but they learn pretty quick that there’s a lot more going on,” says Koa Kakaio, who is 30.

A California-born Native Hawaiian who relocated to Molokai to discover his roots, Kakaio works jobs in construction and graphic design while also operating his own online apparel business. He is smart and enterprising, but despite working three jobs Kakaio still makes a paycheck-to-paycheck living.

All told, 35% of Molokai’s population receives federal food aid, while more than a third of the residents report that they farm, hunt and fish to keep fed.

Complicating matters further is that a century of deleterious colonization has bred a new reality in which far fewer Native Hawaiians own any of the lands on which their ancestors long cultivated an impressive bounty of food.

Simply put, it’s harder than ever to carry out the old Hawaiian way of life on this tiny isle.

Native Hawaiians no longer have access to much of the land that has been bought up by Asian and American businesses, federal and state government and transplants from places ranging from Kansas to the Philippines. Most no longer speak their native language that for a time was outlawed in Hawaii classrooms.

Throw in widespread land degradation—the fallout of a defunct sugar and pineapple plantation industry—and a new and controversial biotech seed business that provides some of the island’s only well-paying jobs, and you’ve got a web of political and cultural complications that not even this sleepy little island can escape.

“Everybody’s selling this place as a paradise and everybody’s trying to sweep the history under the rug,” Kakaio says. “Sometimes it feels like Hawaiians are completely written out of history. That’s why people get so mad. Then you bring us back when you want to make Moana into a Disney princess. People are angry.”

But more than a hundred years after Hawaii’s last monarch was imprisoned in her palace and forced to abdicate the throne, some wonder whether they can trust Washington’s motives in offering to strengthen the political autonomy of Native Hawaiians through federal recognition.

“Why should we do nation-to-nation?” says Ruth Yap, an 80-year-old Native Hawaiian from Molokai. “So that then they’ll turn around and try to put in an oil pipeline that threatens the water we drink? From what I can see that they’re doing over there with the Indians, we don’t need to get ourselves involved in that.”

Proponents of federal recognition say achieving the nation-within-a-nation status under the U.S. government would eradicate at least this one injustice.

Indigenous Hawaiians are the only Native group in the nation that have not been able to rebuild some semblance of political autonomy. Reversing this situation, supporters say, could help to empower the group, who, compared to Hawaii’s other racial groups, are disproportionately afflicted by illiteracy, incarceration, obesity, and homelessness.

“I believe the Hawaiian Kingdom still exists, it was never extinguished,” says Timmy Leong, a champion of total independence who is gentle, bespectacled and bearded. “When you think of Donald Trump and that whole birther movement, saying that Obama was born in Kenya—he got it right. He just got the country wrong. Obama wasn’t born in the U.S., he was born in the Hawaiian Kingdom.”

Apart from federal recognition, there are other roads to sovereignty. Total independence is a goal desired by many Native Hawaiians who argue that it’s still possible to force the U.S. government to retreat from the Hawaiian Islands by the order of an international court. 

Supporters of this more radical route to sovereignty point out the United States has already admitted its faults: In 1993, Congress formally apologized for the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, conceding the nation’s role in seizing land without compensation or consent and expressing remorse for its contributions to “the suppression of the inherent sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian people.”

“Anytime the usurper offers you something on a silver platter, I see it as bait,” says Mike Weeks, an advocate of total independence.

Weeks, a Molokai native, routinely gives away 40 percent of the vegetables he harvests on his one-acre farm because there are plenty of hungry mouths but not enough folks with money to pay for it.

“The thing is, America didn’t steal our home; it stole our minds,” Weeks says. “We’re laying back enjoying welfare when we should be fighting for a better future. Give us one or two more generations, and we’ll get our home back.”

Opponents of total independence insist that it’s naive to entertain the fanciful notion that the U.S. government and its military would actually pack up and leave these strategically located isles. If it did, critics say, the blow of losing American citizenship would leave Native Hawaiians scrambling for basic resources, such as food. Imports account for about 90 percent of what feeds Hawaii’s residents and tourists.

“I’m Hawaiian born and raised, but I wasn’t born under the Hawaiian Kingdom,” says Pilipo Solatorio, a Navy veteran and respected Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner who lives a traditional way of life in the same secluded Molokai valley as his ancient ancestors. “What my grandparents tried to teach me is that you take the good from the Hawaiian way and you blend it with what’s good about America. They believed that we must move forward, not backward.”

“I cannot blame the people of today for what happened in that period. I have no grouch with America. How can you get mad at America when you’re born in America? Yes, I am Hawaiian. And no, America isn’t perfect. But there is no perfect place on this earth.”

In a recent push by Native Hawaiians to rebuild their political autonomy, nearly 90,000 Native Hawaiian voters became certified to participate in a 2015 election aimed at assembling a delegacy to write a constitution for a new sovereign nation. Organizers planned a month-long summit in Honolulu, where Native Hawaiians elected from around the globe would design a legislative structure and a bill of rights. Hawaiians could then move to legitimize their contract of self-governance by seeking recognition from the United States or an international governing body, such as the United Nations or the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands.

But the U.S. Supreme Court ordered election officials not to count the ballots, prompting Native Hawaiian leaders to terminate the vote. The court order was triggered by a lawsuit by two non-Native Hawaiians who weren’t eligible to participate in the election, and four Native Hawaiians who argued that race-restricted voting is illegal.

The lawsuit is still making its way through the courts.

With the election called off, some candidates for delegate seats still chose to convene in Honolulu at an abbreviated convention, during which a document to steer self-determination was drafted. But without a means of conducting a legal vote, there was no way for Native Hawaiians to ratify it.

A retired firefighter and Vietnam veteran, 67-year-old Bobby Alcain says he did not support the ambitions of those who convened to write a new Native Hawaiian constitution because, in his opinion, they fell too short. 

He wonders—unless Native Hawaiians are returned to the land that has been bought up by foreigners, how can a new constitution do anyone any good?

Alcain’s coming-of-age as a Native Hawaiian was set in motion by his experience in the U.S. military. It was only after he suited up in uniform and went overseas that his mind opened to the idea that he was different from most of the other Army men he had fought alongside.

“I thought I was a true blue American,” Alcain says. “But I had no idea who I was. When I came home to Hawaii, I spent a year in the library reading every book I could find about what it means to be a Hawaiian, and I realized that I wasn’t the same as the other guys. 

Eventually, I started to plant things in the ground, because it’s very hard to be Hawaiian if you’re not connected to the earth. To heal the land is to heal yourself.”

Today, at the small farm where he grows copious vegetables and fruit, Alcain welcomes anyone—friend, stranger or tourist—to visit and take freely from his harvest. In keeping with Native Hawaiian tradition, there’s just one rule—no one may take more than he or she alone can eat.

“When you start caring for the earth, you start to care for everything,” says Alcain, who wears his hair down his back in a long, slender braid. “You start caring for the plants, for the bugs, for the animals, for people around you, for strangers. That’s the meaning of aloha; it’s not just a greeting you hear at the airport.”

In Alcain’s view, the most searing injustice of the U.S. takeover of the Hawaiian island chain is that so many Native Hawaiians have been removed from the land on which their entire culture is predicated. To care for the land and sea as ancestors is to fulfill the cornerstone of what it means to be Native Hawaiians, Alcain says.

“Right now, Hawaiians don’t own a piece of dirt,” Alcain says. “The U.S. took all of it away. Now, it’s easy for me, by myself, on this little piece of land that I’m caring for, to live a life of sovereignty. I can say I’m sovereign and no one is going to stop me. But sovereignty isn’t about the me, it’s about the we. How long are we going to wait to get our land back?”

See also:

Ea O Ka Aina: Wailua Nui Update 2/2/18 
Ea O Ka Aina: Occupying the Coco Palms 3/30/17

Ea O Ka Aina: Restoring the Kingdom of Hawaii 11/23/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Guide to Hawaiian secession 11/6/15
Ea O Ka Aina: Hawaiian sovereignty on the line 10/28/15
Ea O Ka Aina: Hawaiian Independence Day 11/12/14
Ea O Ka Aina: Feds Threaten Hawaiian Sovereignty 2/2/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Hawaiian Sovereignty Issues 9/17/11
Ea O Ka Aina: Case for Hawaiian Sovereignty 12/20/10
Ea O Ka Aina: Hawaiian Sovereignty Panel 9/26/09
Ea O Ka Aina: "Conquest of Hawaii" 7/4/09

Island Breath: Hawaiian Nation - Part One 4/25/08

Island Breath: Hawaiian Nation - Part Two 5/4/08
Island Breath: Hawaiian Supreme Court & Apology Bill 3/5/08

Island Breath: Trail against Henry Noa 7/28/07
Island Breath: Hawaiian Sovereignty & Apology Bill 5/16/07
Island Breath: Stop the Akaka Bill 4/9/2005
 Island Breath: One Step at a Time with Bumpy 9/3/05
Island Breath: Francis Boyle on Hawaiian Sovereignty 12/28/04

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An Ending

SUBHEAD: Our farm, like many of our US farms and towns, is in the grip of an extended cold spell.

By Brian Miller on 31 December 2017 for Winged Elm Farm -
(http://www.wingedelmfarm.com/blog/2017/12/31/an-ending/)


Image above: Canton Minnesota Amish farm in winter snow. From (http://www.desertphotorestoration.com/gallery/v/farm/CantonMinn.jpg.html).

The initial thrill that comes with an ice storm and a loss of power faded a bit the morning the temperature bottomed out at 3 degrees.

Delores the sow had dragged the heater out of her water trough for the fifth time, the pond ice for the cattle and horse had to be broken every few hours, and a young ewe and her newborn had to be rescued after lambing in a far corner of the wind-blown sheep pasture and relocated to the shelter of a barn stall.

Still, the domestic pleasure of coming into a cozy house heated by a woodstove to sip a hot cup of tea is not to be dismissed.

Traditionally we built our houses to meet the demands of our climates, a grass hut if you lived on a tropical isle or a house with connected barn if you lived in New England. Older houses in Louisiana, when I was growing up, were typically built a couple of feet off the ground. It was a good model for a warm climate.

The open space underneath kept the house cooler in the warmer months (most of the year), and the elevation protected against the occasional flooding. Freezes, like the big one in 1940 my dad recalled, were rare.

And given that most plumbing was limited to the kitchen, freeze damage to the house was minimal.

Infrastructure was on my mind this past week here in East Tennessee. After a week of temperatures barely budging above freezing, we had an ice storm.

The storm caused our farm to lose power. Then the temperatures plummeted to low single digits. Thankfully, we had a generator to run the refrigerator, well pump and a few essential electrical circuits.

A Jotul woodstove helped keep the house a comfortable 60 degrees. Another generator at the barn kept a variety of water tanks heated for the sheep, chickens, goose, cattle and horse.

Today, our houses are designed to accommodate the additional “essentials” that just a generation ago were not needed nor even available.

The electricity to keep the modern house functioning is a relatively new concept in human culture. The boundary line of what is essential has shifted. Shelter, heat, food and water now share demand with internet, smartphone, cable TV and microwave.

Older forms of infrastructure had built-in resilience: barns carefully constructed to hold heat, with hay mows above to ease the feeding of livestock in poor weather; deep in-ground cisterns to provide fresh water for the farm; houses designed to facilitate warmth in the winter or coolness in the summer—smart, low-tech designs that we have pushed aside with the assumption that the power grid will now take care of us.

Over the years Cindy and I have discussed converting our farm to an off-the-grid power system. Each time, though, we found the costs to be prohibitive.

But this week, after a few days without power, as we scrambled to keep up with our needs, it occurred to me: off-the-grid is easy; it is our modern needs that are complicated, the prohibitive factor, the stumbling block, the real expense.

Those old houses in south Louisiana worked year in, year out because they had very little modern infrastructure to protect. Working under the house insulating each individual pipe before the ice storm, I was overwhelmed by how much plumbing is needed in our small house just to furnish us water on demand.

Hot and cold pipes to the kitchen and the two bathrooms, the hot water heater and the washer/dryer—a complexity of plumbing requiring protection from the elements, so that it might protect us from the elements.

Driving into town late in the week, I saw dozens of downed trees, limbs still balancing on utility lines, brush pushed to the edges of the road.

As I looked at the miles of power lines and telephone lines, our true vulnerability was evident. It was not the loss of electrical power that we feared but the loss of a certain status that comes with our modern life, a status of predictability.

Off-the-grid literature is typically geared towards finding ways around the commercial power source, yet retaining the modern conveniences. As we watered and fed our sheep, as lambs were born this week without regard to the temperature or the state of our utilities, I thought about the Amish.

While many of us were without power, were they concerned with an inability to update their Facebook pages, charge their cell phones, keep their freezers going, stay warm with their electric furnaces?

 Did they feel powerless? Somehow I doubt it.

The complexity of this modern life, the infrastructure that maintains it, is hardwired for disruption.

Our system and our expectations for what it must provide are such that losing power is a form of powerlessness. That in itself seems a form of slavery. Which is why there is, for me, always that bit of anarchic joy in an emergency, an unshackling from the system.

Though that uncertain joy is accompanied by relief when the master comes home and power is restored.
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The Path We Take

SUBHEAD: Turn left in 300 feet … turn left … turn left…. Rerouting … rerouting … rerouting.

By Brian Miller on 3 October 2017 for Winged Elm Farm -
(http://www.wingedelmfarm.com/blog/2017/09/30/the-path-we-take/)


Image above: Modern dashboard automobile navigation system displays route ahead and can anticipate traffic ahead. From (https://www.greenbot.com/article/2931099/android-auto-review-the-best-way-to-get-google-maps-in-your-car.html).

Recently, a young relative of mine set out on a 600-mile road trip to attend his cousin’s wedding — and got lost halfway there when his phone went dead. Hearing of his misadventure I was confused. How could someone go so far and then get lost?

And how did a dead phone terminate his travels?

Did he not consult a map? Own one? Pick up the free one at the state line?

No, apparently a map wasn’t needed because he had a smart phone. Until it wasn’t.

The would-be wedding guest set off on an eight-hour-plus journey, armed with no more than an address to guide him in where and how he was going. So, what did he do, when the phone, and consequently the GPS, died? He turned around and drove home.

As kids, my older brother and I would sit down with the National Geographic and, starting in June, begin to dream about August vacation destinations. The back pages of the magazine were chock-full of advertisements from state tourism boards.

We’d send off for packets from exciting places like Montana, New Mexico, and Idaho, all locations with elevations higher than the six-feet-above-sea-level spot that we called home.

Soon, fat packages of maps and “things to do” would arrive in the mail.

The maps would be unfolded on the kitchen table, where we would trace out routes we might take on the most narrow and obscure road possible. “Let’s drive down this little road in this valley south of Missoula,” I’d say. We’d pull out the encyclopedia and read about places we were going to visit.

There were shoeboxes jammed with maps in the closet, a big globe and stacks of atlases in the den.

Today, in my own library, there resides a broad assortment of state and international maps and world and historical atlases. Because, maps give us more than a hopeful path to a distant destination. They inform.

Why is there a Northwest Angle exclave in Minnesota, and just what is an exclave anyway? Where were the original colonial boundaries of North Carolina? How did the frontier of the late Roman Empire contract? Maps inform, and they also feed our curiosity:

Is Puerto Rico surrounded by water? (Why, indeed it is, Mr. President.)

They serve as a springboard into the past, present, and future. And, yes, even answer the mundane: What are my options for getting to a wedding in Oregon?

Of course, GPS is a remarkable technological feature. It gets us to a destination without getting lost, without having to wonder where we are. Yet, cocooning ourselves in a cushion of geographical illiteracy also breeds a listless lack of awareness, demanding nothing more from us than an abiding self-interest.

And, in the absence of an alternative mode of mapping — whether it’s orienting to the sun or grabbing the gazetteer — when the GPS goes dark, it leaves us with no option but to turn around and go home, wherever that might be.

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Adios autos - Children have legs

SUBHEAD: Kids are not only the citizens of the future, they are also an active part of our society.

By Staff on 9 August 2017 for Goethe.de -
(http://www.goethe.de/ins/cz/prj/fup/en16408476.htm)


Image above: Where once cars blocked the view of the school entrance, there is now a bench. Photo by Tano Espinosa From original article.

[IB Publisher's note: As children my generation (baby boomers) had a great deal more independence than the young today. My wife used to walk to primary school during snowy upstate New York winters. I used to play outdoors until sunset on long summer evenings on Long Island while in grade school. Kids had a lot of unsupervised time in which to invent their own lives.]

The scene is almost always the same: a traffic jam at the doors of Spanish primary schools. Hardly any children are seen without their parents. An initiative in the town of Jávea seeks to counter this way of doing things. It has rediscovered the street for schoolchildren.

“Going to school together helps children feel like part of a group”, says Antonio Moya, an architect by profession. He is one of the four masterminds behind the Pas a Pas (Step by Step) project in Jávea, which aims to give children an active role in urban life.

Since April 2016, more than 100 children from four primary schools have been walking to school together in this town on Spain’s East coast. They have been joined in autumn by students from another two schools.

“We expect the initiative to reach up to 300 children during this term”, says Moya. The concept is simple: for every school there is a meeting place where children between the ages of six and twelve assemble and walk to school together.

Groups with smaller children are accompanied by an adult, and shopkeepers in the area have been informed and act as points of control, if needed.

Pedestrian-friendly cities
Pas a Pas also helps parents save time. According to a 2015 study, they spend an average of 100 hours a year driving their children to school.

This is not to mention the benefits for the environment: the creators of Pas a Pas estimate that parents currently travel 854 kilometres a year to transport their kids. Leaving the car in the garage can significantly reduce CO2 emissions, which not only benefits the educational community, but the entire city.

Jávea is not the only place working to win over parents and children to a more socially conscious way of going to school. The first such initiative in the Spanish capital of Madrid dates back to 2007, and Barcelona, the Catalan metropolis, took some initial steps in 2000.

The satellite town Rivas Vaciamadrid, east of Madrid, received an EU award for sustainable urban mobility owing to its commitment to road safety: fewer cars on the street also mean a safer path to school.

This also happens to be the core idea that, for years, has driven the campaign by the Spanish traffic authority, the DGT, to support cities, schools and families in making streets more pedestrian-friendly and to foster children’s autonomy.

Indeed, the Jávea project was launched three years ago when a child was hit by a car in front of the school. Calls for greater safety became widespread, and the city responded by freeing funds. Chema Segovia, also an architect and, along with Moya, one of the founders of Pas a Pas, recalls the beginnings in Jávea:

“When we took on the project, the first thing we did was to meet with representatives of the schools, the police and parents. But we realized that someone important was missing from our discussions.”

It was obvious who he was referring to: the children. “We couldn’t make decisions for those who hadn’t been given a voice,” says Segovia.


Image above: Nine-year-old Elena, with her fellow walkers, on a bench in front of their school. Photo (CC BY-SA): Antonio Moya . Photo by Tano Espinosa From original article.

The street as a site of social encounter
Then workshops were held in which children could bring in their own ideas about the exterior design of the school: more parking for bikes, for instance, skating tracks or benches to sit on. There was nothing outrageous about their proposals.

But they came to naught: either because of lacking public budgets, or due to the everyday chaos of parking. That is, in almost every case.

But not at the primary school of the Jávea port district. There, in front of the entrance, two benches have been installed, right where there used to be a line of cars waiting to collect children. “This is not only about making the journey to school safer,” explains Segovia.

For him, the street is not an object of protection, but rather a site of social encounter, a place for sharing:

“And this is precisely what we seek to achieve with our project.”

The architect points out that children play a key role in sustainable urban planning: “They are not only the citizens of the future: they are also an active part of our society. And, as such, they can take part in decision-making.”

Today, three years after the start of the initiative, Jávea looks different. In front of the school in the port district, you can see planters with colorful drawings.

On top of the fences around another school’s yard, children had placed vases they themselves had made. While they have been removed in the meantime, everyone cherishes the memories of that day. Even the residents.

“These individual actions can help make our project more familiar to the town’s citizens,” states Antonio Moya. And that is precisely the goal: to create a city that is worthy for all those who live in it.

Painted signs instead of traffic signs A lot has happened, too, on the walls of houses in the city center. Here and there you can see signs that point children in the direction of school.

These are not traffic signs, but rather homemade signs that have been painted and stuck or hung to the walls.

“Pas a Pas”, they say: “Step by step”, a sign of integration and identity of a group that, as often noted by the Italian pedagogue and visionary, Francesco Tonucci, modern urban life very often marginalizes.

“The great thing is that children have no prejudices,” says Moya. This is in stark contrast to the authorities that, in many other towns, came out in opposition to the ideas of Pas a Pas.

“Luckily, this is not the case in Jávea,” he adds. The city’s commitment is solid, and interest is also growing among parents:

“What works best, of course, is word of mouth.”

This has certainly been the case in Jávea. The initiative of getting to school together has been moving forward on its own for some time: the key movers of Pas a Pas generally act behind the scenes.

Also, Moya and his team will not have to visit the primary school in the port district, one of the new members of the project, on too many Fridays in the future.

The parents have worked out a plan among themselves, found adult monitors and sought to encourage other families to join Pas a Pas. “I’m sure we can find others,” says a confident mother as she says goodbye to her daughter Elena.

The nine-year-old girl is joining the group on their walk to school for the first time, and she is clearly curious about the other children. There are five of them: not a bad start. Who knows? Other schoolmates might just come along next time. Because Elena is undoubtedly enjoying the time spent outside, in the fresh air.

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Grow food for collapse

SUBHEAD: Getting ready for a sustainable lifestyle takes more practice than most people suspect.

By Juan Wilson on 6 August 2017 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/08/grow-food-for-collapse.html)


Image above: "Occupy the Farm -  Take Back the Tract". From a film "The Wisdom to Survive: Climate Change, Capitalism & Community" From (http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/reviews/view/27313).

A few decades ago back on the mainland in rural north-west New York state my wife Linda and I did a website named The Gobbler. See TheGobbler. It followed a printed version that we put out eight times a year and distributed to local businesses and to subscribers through the 1990s: 

The Gobbler was a seasonal & regional journal from
the Chautauqua Lake area of New York with a
Green Philosophy towards nature, spirit, art and politics.
The Gobbler was been part chronicle, part almanac,
part journal of fiction and even environmental newsletter.

The area we focused on was within what used to be called "courtin' distance" to our place in Panama, New York. "Courtin' distance" was how far a boy might travel to visit a girl and get back home to finish his chores before dinner. We thought that covered an area of about 50 square miles.  

A lot of that area around our place was either state conservation land, trailers on old lots,  and Amish or "English" farms. Some gravel covered roads near us had no power or telephone lines. You might see a horse and buggy there.

The point is that that is where we are headed back to - that is if we can survive the times we are in right now. Printed local publications, some telephone and maybe even telegraph communication. If we're lucky there will be some ham radios left too.

What there will not be are high resolution small portable screens with stereo sound and motion and touch detection that absorb hours of our days and know more about us than we do. We will more likely be using those Samsungs, iPhones and tablets for drink coasters and sushi plates.

Here in Hawaii, where there is close ground water (until the rain cycle fails,) all the added sunlight, humidity and CO2 which have created an environment that is causing the plants to grow like crazy.

Find a place and grow food now!
The moral of the story is to start growing as much food as you can immediately. Don't wait for the kids to be gone or retirement. Don't wait for the money to buy that homestead or farm.  Join a community garden or start one.

We are getting closer to that time when the shipping containers crossing the the Pacific (on the water or in the air) won't be coming cheaply and reliably. When that occurs we will really be on our own.

A worldwide reset is on the way. When completed there will be far fewer people and much less available energy for getting work done. We will all be on our way to a life like the indigenous Hawaiians or the faithful Amish.

We will all be on a path back to something like the 17th to 19th century - if we're lucky. And it is going to take quite a bit of practice to get along in that world.

Getting a headstart is not only fair, it is required.

Hone your skills. As Dmitry Orlov said on several occasions "Collapse now and avoid the rush!"

Below is a video of a talk given by Orlov about that subject (less than two weeks after "3/11" the Fukushima Daiichi triple meltdown).


Video above: "The Wisdom to Survive: Climate Change, Capitalism & Community". From (https://youtu.be/7QLIOuRS1n4).


Video above: "The Collapse -Dmitry Orlov". From (https://youtu.be/Ecfxl1wZDpE).

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Find and Limit Ourselves 2/17/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Capitalism is a form of Cancer 10/7/16
Ea O Ka Aina: How about a "Grown" economy? 10/11/16
Ea O Ka Aina: From Here on Down 8/4/15
Ea O Ka Aina : Oases on a future Eaarth 6/28/15
Ea O Ka Aina: The Last Straw 12/17/14 
Ea O Ka Aina: Worse than you think 5/21/14
Ea O Ka Aina:Things won't get back to normal 2/10/14
Ea O Ka Aina: The New Game 11/10/13
Ea O Ka Aina: Food, Water, Energy & Shelter 1/31/13
Ea O Ka AIna: Embrace the Change 7/24/12
Ea O Ka Aina: Trick or Treat! 10/31/11
Ea O Ka Aina: Last Trip to the Moon 5/10/11
Ea O Ka Aina: The Five Year Plan 3/4/10
Ea O Ka Aina: All Aboard! 12/9/09



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Effort to de-occupy Hawaii

SUBHEAD: "E Ho'Olokahi Ka Lahui" "A Call to Make the Nation as One"

By Walter Ritte on 25 June 2017 in Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2017/06/effort-to-de-occupy-hawaii.html)


Image above: Poster/Schedule for E Hoʻolokahi Ka Lahui events featuring royals who lead Hawaii during its independence. Click to enlarge.

I’d like to invite you to a series of free La Ho'i Ho'i Ea (Sovereignty Restoration Day) events in July! Celebrate with the community and learn about the legal steps being taken to de-occupy Hawaii.

The E Hoʻolokahi Ka Lahui events are being held on each of the Islands in conjunction with the sovereignty month of La Hoʻi Hoʻi Ea and will feature speakers, films, music and local food.

Our goal is to bring attention to the fight for an independent and sustainable Hawaii. We want to lokahi around the effort to de-occupy Hawaii at the Peace Palace at the Hague in the Netherlands and educate the international community of the truth of who we are.

Food independence remains a crucial problem for Hawaii – the event series is our opportunity to discuss this and other issues with our community while celebrating the beauty and perseverance of our islands and people.

WHEN & WHERE:
July 1 – Molokai, Kaunakakai library, 5-9 PM
July 8 – Kauai, Kauai Community College, 11 AM-4 PM
July 15 – Big Island, Kona location TBA
July 22 – Big Island, Uncle Roberts Aha Bar in Kaimu 4-9 PM
July 23 – Maui, location TBA
July 29 – Oahu, location TBA

Check back often for updates on the HCFS Facebook page >>

We hope to see you there.


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We Are Still In!

SUBHEAD: Two reasons why this American climate alliance "We Are Still In" could save the world.

By Tegan Tallulah on 19 June 2017 for The Climate Lemon  -
(http://theclimatelemon.com/we-are-still-in-climate-coalition/)


Image above: Supporters of Paris Climate Accord gather to demonstrate on the Andy Warhol Bridge over the Allegheny River in down town Pittsburgh after Trump rejected world climate agreement. Pittsburgh continues its plan to power itself with 100% renewable energy by 2035. From original article.

There are many reasons why Donald Trump is dangerous. His egotism, his authoritarianism, his disregard for facts, his bigotry towards women, Muslims, Mexicans, disabled people… There’s quite a few contenders.

But arguably his most dangerous quality is his views on climate change. Because this is an area where he can damage the whole world, and that damage can reverberate for centuries.

Scary, huh? All through Trump’s campaign he promised to pull the USA out of the Paris Climate Deal, and sure enough, after a period of intense um-ing and ah-ing, he confirmed he would do so. Queue an impressive display of horror and condemnation from leaders around the world.

I was all prepared to be severely depressed about this, but then something amazing happened.
American business leaders, city mayors, state governors and university principals, stood up and said ‘no, we’re not going to put up with this shit’. (I’m not sure that’s a direct quote, I’m paraphrasing).

This unprecedented alliance – known as the ‘We Are Still In coalition’ has formed around support for the Paris Agreement and recognition that climate action is their obligation to the world, and is good for America anyway.

This is incredibly powerful, for two main reasons: the science and the symbolism. By that I mean the physical direct impact on the carbon emissions of America and the world, and the psychological, cultural and political impact that such a move has on the rest of the world, and the indirect climate effect of that.

But before we dive into these two main points, let’s just recap on why the USA’s response to climate change is so crucial for the world, and what this new American climate alliance actually is.

Quick note on why USA is so crucial to climate action

The USA has by far the biggest historical carbon emissions and one of the highest emissions per person in the world. This means they are one of the countries most responsible for causing this climate crisis. Quite frankly, it’s amoral to walk away from your responsibilities. If you make a mess, you should at least help clean it up.

Even if the USA wasn’t a heavy polluter, there would be a strong argument that they should be a key player in sorting out the mess anyway, just because they have the power to do so.

They are the richest country in the world and are routinely regarded as the most powerful, due to immense wealth and military might and ‘cultural power’ – a more fuzzy concept that includes everything from having the most UN diplomats to Hollywood movies dominating the global media market.


Image above: Pie chart of percentage of cumulative CO2 emissions between 1850 and 2011 by country. From World Resource Institute (http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/11/6-graphs-explain-world%E2%80%99s-top-10-emitters). Click to enlarge.


Image above: Bar chart of per person carbons emissions in metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2014 per person by country. From original article. This chart was adjusted from the 2011 data from the World Resource Institute (http://www.wri.org/blog/2014/11/6-graphs-explain-world%E2%80%99s-top-10-emitters). It separates countries in the European Union. Note, the United States past Canada in CO2 emissions per person. The world average is about what Britain's emissions are (less than a third of USA's. Click to enlarge. 

So what is the "We Are Still In" coalition?

The We Are Still In coalition is a loose voluntary group of city mayors, state governors, CEOs, investors and university principals who have signed a pledge, on behalf of their communities and organisations, and an open letter to the UN, stating that they are still committed to the Paris Agreement.

They have promised to use their respective powers to lead climate action in their communities and businesses, aiming to meet or exceed the USA’s commitments under the Paris Agreement. (Which by the way is a 26-28% cut in emissions compared to the 2005 level by 2025, and even under Obama they were likely to miss that target).

So who’s actually signed up? The pledge has 1219 signatories so far, and growing. This includes:

• 9 states: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington
• 125 cities. Including Washington DC, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Pittsburgh…
• 902 businesses and investors. Including Amazon, Apple, Google, Gap, Mars, Nike…
• 183 universities and colleges.

You can check out the full list of signatories and their open letter here.

The cities and states represent 120 million Americans and a GDP of $6.2 trillion. The businesses together have combined revenue of $1.4 trillion.

This means 38% of the American population and at least 35% of their GDP is covered by this new alliance. If just the 9 states were a country, that country would be the fifth richest and sixth highest polluter in the world. So it’s a pretty big deal.

The philanthropist, business investor and former Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg has been instrumental in coordinating this alliance, and he has even pledged to donate $15million from Bloomberg Philanthropies to the UN, to replace funding from Washington they’ll now miss out on thanks to Trump.

Although he’s certainly been a leader, it has also been a collaborative effort between 21 nonprofit groups, including C40 Cities, CDP (who I am starting a new job with next month!), WWF and others, who really pushed this forward.

The coalition wants to participate in the Paris Agreement, but there is currently no formal way for them to do so on America’s behalf, as it is an agreement between sovereign nations. However the Accord does call for ‘non-state actors’ to be involved. How this would work in practice is still being worked out.

The two big reasons why this is so incredible

Okay. Now into the real tofu and potatoes of this post. "Science" and "Symbolism"

The science

As this Alliance covers 38% of the American people and at least 35% of their GDP, they have significant power to influence the carbon emissions of the country. Due to the USA’s federal structure, states and cities have fairly extensive powers. The large companies have huge power through their supply chains.

However, even under Obama, the USA was not on track to meet its climate targets. With Trump’s hostile regressive stance and deregulation of pollution, it’s going to be even tougher to meet them.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t.

I’m fairly optimistic about their chances, as it looks like the hostility of the federal government is actually acting as an effective motivator to people who would have just sat back and done little otherwise. There really is a huge groundswell of support for the Paris Agreement emerging from the bottom up, and it’s not clear how far that momentum will go.

It’s difficult to estimate what percentage of the USA’s carbon emissions are represented in this coalition, because many of the members are overlapping – so you can’t just add up all their emissions. But the nine states alone represent 17% of USA emissions – and that’s without all the major cities and businesses outside of those states.

The symbolism

Direct cuts in carbon emissions are not even necessarily the most influential thing about the We Are Still In coalition. The symbolism is incredibly powerful. Here are cities, states and businesses directly defying Trump by saying: ‘You made the wrong decision. You do not speak for us. We are still in the Paris Agreement’.

The fact that Washington and New York were two key signatories will be a particular slap in the face for Trump. The small city of Pittsburgh is also notable because in his speech he declared ‘I was elected to represent Pittsburgh, not Paris’.

The mayor of Pittsburgh resented his city being used as an excuse like this, especially considering they already had a climate action plan to go 100% renewable powered. He publicly disagreed with the decision to leave the Paris Agreement, and joined the We Are Still In coalition instead.

The President also argued that climate action is bad for business and he would prioritise business. And what response did he get?

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Disney CEO Bob Iger promptly quit his presidential advice council in protest. The ‘climate vs business’ position has become more discredited than ever, as over 900 businesses have joined the coalition.

Many of the most outspoken members are American-based tech giants, like Google, Apple and Amazon. They argue that in the short term, there are great business opportunities to be had from clean energy and greener products – and in the long term all business depends on a stable climate.

When Trump said he was going to exit the Paris Agreement, a real worry was that other countries would lose motivation and think ‘if the richest most powerful country, that has some of the highest emissions, is going to walk away, then there’s no point me doing anything.

Screw it, I’m out’. For some, that was an even bigger problem than the USA’s actual emissions. Because it posed the threat of unravelling the delicate international consensus that had been pieced together –finally, painfully- on this global issue.

Luckily, other national leaders were keen to reconfirm their support and to condemn Trump’s decision. (Even Kim Jong-un, who called the move “the height of egosim”, with zero self-awareness).
What this coalition does, is it assures the international community that America is still at the table. Even if the central government pulls out, America will still be informally committed to the Paris Agreement, through this broad and growing coalition.

Conclusion – Thank you America!

It’s imperative for the whole world’s future that America does not walk away from tackling climate change. Despite Trump’s damaging and regressive decision, it now looks like this will not be the case. Where the government steps down, leaders from local government, business and civil society will step up.

This has given me hope for the future. Thank you to everyone involved – thank you to the signatories, the organisers, and to all the everyday Americans who support it.
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Alaska turning to microgrids

SUBHEAD: In remote rural communities renewable energy is increasingly providing power.

By David W. Shaw on 6 March 2017 for Ensia -
(https://ensia.com/features/alaska-renewable-energy/)


Image above: Wind power feeding electric microgrid in rural Alaska. Photo by Adina Preston. From original article.

I flew into Unalakleet, Alaska, on a late fall day. With about 700 people, Unalakleet is large by rural Alaska standards and serves as a regional hub. The village is located on a sandy spit of land where a clear river meets the turbid water of the Bering Sea. Out the plane window the sun shone bright, glittering off the wind-tossed whitecaps of the sea.

To the east, the rolling Nulato Hills, clad in autumn foliage, provided a picturesque backdrop. As the small plane banked for our approach, a row of wind turbines appeared atop a ridge. Installed in 2009 they are among the numerous renewable power installations that have popped up across rural Alaska in the past decade.

In more accessible parts of the planet, renewable energy is often embraced as a tool for reducing the threat of climate change and installed in spite of, rather than due to financial considerations. In Alaska, however, says Piper Foster Wilder, deputy director of the Renewable Energy Alaska Project, or REAP, “Economics, not the environment, are driving the shift to renewables.”

That’s not to say these remote villages in Alaska aren’t dealing with environmental challenges. Of course they are. In fact, the far north is warming at more than twice the rate of the rest of the planet. Permafrost is melting and as the ground thaws, it causes instability beneath the foundations of buildings and oceans and rivers encroach, eroding shorelines.

 Coastal villages, once protected for much of the year by shore-fast sea ice, are increasingly exposed to storms and flooding as that ice recedes, even causing some communities to begin moving to safer, inland locations.

But, in many remote Alaskan villages, the cost of electricity is the highest in the nation, reaching a wallet-emptying US$1 per kilowatt-hour in some communities (the national average is US$0.12/kwh). The price is due to the cost of hauling fossil fuels (primarily diesel) by plane or barge to these remote areas.

For example, the western half of Alaska, where Unalakleet lies, has no highways, no railroad tracks, no power lines. In that big country, the distances between the few scattered communities are daunting. If power can be generated using local renewables, the up-front cost is almost always worth it.

“We are up to 99.7 percent renewable energy,” says Lloyd Shanley, power generation manager at Kodiak Electric Association, Inc., which provides electricity to the area around the town of Kodiak (population 6,400) on Kodiak Island off the southwestern coast of the Alaska Peninsula.

The primary source of KEA’s power is an alpine lake that lies in the mountains above town. With a little creative engineering, KEA ran a penstock from the lake’s steep outflow stream, channeling the water into a turbine system that contributes about 80 percent of the community’s power needs. An additional 20 percent comes from a handful of wind turbines on the ridges around town.

“Our conversion to renewables has resulted in no increased cost to consumers in nearly 20 years,” Shanley says, a statistic that few communities, regardless of location, can claim.

“Kodiak should be a template,” says Wilder, but that template needs an asterisk. “The town there benefits from its topography, which allows the very successful use of small-scale hydro and wind. But every community has an abundance of some resource.”

For many villages on Alaska’s long, exposed coast, that resource is wind.

The turbines I saw from my plane window as I descended into Unalakleet have a capacity of up to 600 kilowatts of power, enough to offset the consumption of tens of thousands of gallons of diesel over the course of a year. Across Alaska, similar projects are popping up.

A map of renewable power projects on the REAP website shows wind turbine icons up and down the state’s coast. Gambell, Savoonga, Nome, Wales, Shaktoolik, Emmonak, Chevak and more than a dozen other villages have embraced wind-generated power. Indeed wind turbines surrounding Alaska’s villages are so common as to no longer be remarkable.

What is remarkable is that these small, remote, economically challenged communities have successfully integrated renewable energy into their existing, diesel-based power grids with more success than just about anywhere else in the world. Remarkable indeed, and also a lesson to be applied elsewhere.

Some 1.2 billion people on the planet do not currently have access to electricity. And there’s a lot these people can learn from Alaska. “Microgrids, not large-scale power generation, will be the most effective way to provide electricity to those still unconnected,” Wilder says.

Microgrids are essentially small power grids customized for single communities. In the case of rural Alaska, existing generator-based grids were modified to include renewables, but developing a microgrid from scratch makes the inclusion of renewable power sources easier.

Unlike large, centralized systems that rely on enormous power plants, microgrids provide power to small geographic areas. Ideally, their power sources, like the wind blowing across the hills of Unalakleet or Kodiak’s alpine lake, take advantage of locally abundant renewables.

Often, when people envision expanding the use of renewables to communities in need, they think of expansive solar farms, rows of wind turbines and large-scale hydro projects, but as Wilder points out, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. While she emphasizes efficiency first, other decisions depend on the community.

“The first thing we address in a community is efficiency,” she says. “Then we work on the power grid and last consider the best sources of power.” That allows the integration of renewables to take into account the resources and challenges of each community.

Every community, whether it’s an Arctic village or a small town in Bangladesh, is unique, and there are no formulaic solutions.

Whether turbines spinning in the cold wind of Alaska’s coast or the precipitous streams of Kodiak, electric generation and delivery systems work best when they are adapted to the communities they serve.

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Dominica in Transition

SUBHEAD:Report from the island State of Dominica in the Caribbean.  Could "Transition" assist the island?

By Naresh Giangrande on 6 January 2017 for Resilience -
(http://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-01-06/dominica-in-transition/)


Image above: Secret Beach at Portsmouth on Dominica. Photo byEric Tuvel. From (https://erictuvel.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/island-life/).

[IB Publisher's note: This Caribbean island nation halfway between Puerto Rico and Trinidad is not that dissimilar to Kauai. It is, however, closer to its full independence and its indigenous population more in charge. Dominica does not have an armed forces - and likes it that way. Lessons might be learned through their experience.]

The island state of Dominica (absolutely NOT the Dominican Republic!) is unique, constantly confounding my expectations. It is a tropical Caribbean island, but not a typical Caribbean island.

It is hot and wet, mountainous, with small rocky beaches, few tourists, and a fiercely independent spirit in a part of the world dominated by their powerful neighbor to the North.

I was invited by WEF, the Waitukubuli Ecological Foundation, to visit and help them explore Transition as a possible way for this island.

The last refuge of the indigenous inhabitants of the Caribbean, the Kalinago people, Wai’ Tukubuli in their language, is at another moment of choice in it’s history. At a time when the socialism has come and gone, and the current neoliberal, globalized trade system is rapidly falling away, what place for small island states such as Dominica?

When there is a wish amongst most people to move forward and not backwards to a poverty and simple existence that is within living memory. Never completely colonized, to understand the people and this island you need to look back, which might also provide insights into ways forward.

The interior of the island is mountainous, very steep and rugged, and covered with dense rainforest. This enabled a state within a state to sit side by side with first the French then English colonizers. Read this account of the fighting Maroons of Dominica to understand how comprehensive the resistance to colonization was.

Tribes of Maroons and Kalinagos lived for centuries, free men and women apart from, and in occasional violent, bloody conflict with, the colonial slave regimes on the coastal plains.


Image above: Kalinago dancers don traditional wear for displays at the Baruna Aute in the Kalinago Territory. From (http://embracedominica.com/dominicas-people/).

The interior of the island was unsuitable for agriculture, or at least the plantation agriculture of the colonists, and able to resist the superior firepower of the European garrisons. Modern day Dominicans have the blood of these fiercely independent people running in their veins.

Dominica has much going from it from a resilience point of view, and is very different from most Caribbean islands. The sand, sea, and hot dry climate formula which facilitates mass tourism on most islands in the Caribbean does not work in Dominica.

The climate is wetter, the beaches rocky. The shoreline is common land. There have been attempts by hotels chains to build large hotels, but with the proviso that their section of beach become private. Dominicans have so far resisted the temptation to privatize this commons.

Few large estates remain. One of the heirs to the Rockefeller fortune donated his estate to help form the Morne Trois Pitons National Park in the center of the island. Land ownership remains widespread and egalitarian. I have been told most Dominicans have land and many grow their food. Most Transitioners would be very jealous of the 3 or 4 hectares with ample water and sun that ordinary folks have here.


Image above: For Dominicans the perfect definition of ‘peace’ is the absence of an armed force, and they seem to be doing just fine without the intervention of one. From (http://traveltriangle.com/blog/places-without-armed-forces/).

The land is not suitable for large scale agribiz, and hence not bought up by the large tropical fruit and commodity multinationals. There has been a succession of mono cropped, cash crops; citrus, ‘bay’, sugar cane, coffee, and bananas mostly grown by small land owners. All have come and gone. Many of the brightest young educated Dominicans leave the island to work in the USA and UK.

As the curtain goes down on the globalized world we have known for so many decades where does that leave Dominica? The set of cultural assumptions which I call the ‘myth of progress’ operates here as everywhere else.

But as in the ‘developed world’ that set of assumptions about our future; more, better, richer, more high tech are disappearing before our eyes as the ecological limits of growth on a finite planet begin to bite. Transition presents another way altogether of a marriage of the old and the new, making life more local, small scale, and convivial.

Would Transition work here? What would it take? There is a very small middle class. Could or would the ordinary Dominican warm to Transition? There is healthy scepticism of anything European, hardly surprising given the history.

There are a network of credit unions which could supply community funding. Can the small scale land ownership model be extended to renewable energy or community owned light industry? Could Local Entrepreneur Forums work here?

These are some of the questions I have been raising and the Dominicans I have meet are grappling with. There are no easy answers. The Transition model would be useful to the extent that it is very good at engaging people in conversations that matter, visioning, working well in groups, and developing a good networking strategy.

Would Transition look very different, to most places in the world, in Dominica? Probably yes. We have a workshop this Monday to explore these questions further. As always, I only ask the questions.Dominicans must answer.

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