SusHI

‘disruptive’ social entrepreneurs will shape future markets

Written by Ken
11/17/2008
Let’s stipulate that the path away from business-as-usual begins with disruptive ideas. So, the folks who most need our help these days are not elected officials trying to make policy that supports the transition to sustainability. Instead, it’s the ‘social entrepreneurs‘ trying to make new ventures that respond to emerging ‘green business’ opportunities, says John Elkington. Kauai offers [...] Read more...

when half-fast sounds radical: on Google’s energy plan

Written by Ken
11/16/2008
Try this scenario for 2030: there is no electricity from oil or coal, efficiency measures keep electricity demand flat, half of all cars are electric, conventional vehicles get 45mpg, and plug-ins add only 8% to the electricity load. Plus, for every dollar spent in this energy transition, we get $1.23 back in energy savings. Sounds way radical, [...] Read more...

sustainability planners say “act now” on Hawaii’s “fragility”

Written by Ken
11/15/2008
Architect Peter Arsenault led a merry band of planners into Lihue this week for a charrette on sustainable design, and presented their sustainability assessment last night to Kauai business, community and political leaders. ‘Twas a treat to sit with other leaders in the energy working group for the last several days and help these visiting experts [...] Read more...

Hawaii emissions growth slower than expected

Written by Ken
11/14/2008
Hawaii’s updated GHG inventory shows better progress than expected toward meeting Kyoto reduction goals, according to a new study released yesterday. Better bookkeeping for emissions is the key feature of the work by ICF international, which recalculated Hawaii’s 1990 benchmarks and estimated current GHG’s. Compared with the preliminary estimate earlier provided by DBEDT’s John Tantlinger, Hawaii’s GHG [...] Read more...

UH scientist confirms Pollan math: fast food = corn

Written by Ken
11/11/2008
Starting at the retail end of the food chain, geobiologist Hope Jahren sampled 320 fast food offerings, using carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes to infer the source of feed to meat animals and the fat in your fries (via wired). Jahren found that 80% of the beef and chicken was corn-fed, which is totally predictable, [...] Read more...

3 of 5 ain’t bad: on Hawaii’s economic stimulus plan

Written by Ken
11/11/2008
Governor Linda Lingle has been working overtime to reassure island consumers and investors that “our fundamentals are sound” (via KHNL). We can maintain economic stability by investing in island infrastructure, attracting green energy investment, and leveraging federal dollars and partnerships, says Lingle. So far, so good. What’s worrisome is the other two elements of Lingle’s “Five-Point Plan“. While [...] Read more...

my kind of bike guy: Obama pulls nexgen cycling

Written by Ken
11/11/2008
The Obamas went cycling along Chicago’s Lake Michigan shoreline back in August, just after Barry sowed up the Demo nomination, and all us cyclists went “YEAH!” (via huffpost). Perhaps our next president’s intimate knowledge of cycling’s fun and frugality will ensure that human-powered options come up on the feds’ alternative transport radar. Keen observers will note the [...] Read more...

new tricks for old dogs: teach-in on sustainability solutions

Written by Ken
11/10/2008
Eban Goodstein believes that ” historians will look back on these days—stretching from Obama’s election through the first years of his administration—and say that this was humanity’s finest hour.” Why? “Because in 2009, America will pass sweeping legislation that initiates a clean energy revolution, inspires global cooperation, and stabilizes the global climate.” Or we won’t. Last Tuesday, [...] Read more...

walking backwards from the problem: on climate strategy

Written by Ken
11/10/2008
Were it possible to move environmentalism’s agenda-setting beyond myopic “bumper car play by mini-coalitions”, as Ken Ward puts it, we might also want to turn on its head the process by which enviros derive strategic priorities in an aggressive climate change agenda (via grist). Especially as we contemplate how to push back on Obama’s “centrist” tendencies, [...] Read more...

offsetting behavior: on greenwashing your conscience

Written by Ken
11/02/2008
We’ve satirized carbon offsets as indulgences, yet some folks insist on missing the point. Take Fox, for example, which commissioned the animated series called “King of the Hill” to lampoon the whole concept of carbon offsets. And, never mind that this show is foxtypically blustery and ill-informed, as David Roberts notes (via grist). The point is that [...] Read more...

eco-nomics spotlights asset values outside the market

Written by Ken
11/02/2008
Never mind that market values have diverged from actual values in the economy. Most of our valuable ecological assets aren’t even on the books, says Robert Costanza (via commondreams). That’s because large parts of the natural world are usually viewed as “free”, says Costanza, including wetlands that purify water, oceans that produce fish, and trees that [...] Read more...

Hawaii’s ‘transformational’ energy plan: where’s Kauai?

Written by Ken
11/02/2008
Wind power from Lanai will go 48 miles via undersea cable to Oahu as part of a “ground-breaking” agreement among all energy parties in Hawaii…except Kauai. Kauai, you see, is 72 miles from Oahu, and that extra 24 miles plus our small size seems to be a game-breaker. So, while the rest of the state will [...] Read more...

into the light of a dark black night: a sustainability anthem

Written by Ken
10/30/2008
Awakened this morning with the ‘Blackbird’ song playing through my thoughts. Like Paul McCartney’s ‘Blackbird‘, we must now “learn to fly with broken wings” and “learn to see with sunken eyes”. “All our lives”, we were “only waiting for this moment to arise.” McCartney was writing this “purposely symbolic” anthem for the civil rights movement, after Little Rock’s [...] Read more...

SEHIs got game: on superstructing for sustainability

Written by Ken
10/29/2008
Sheesh, this is hard work: staying on top of the cascading threats and burgeoning science while keeping an optimistic outlook and a laser focus on the transition do-list. My editor wife says “wait ’til catastrophe strikes…then, folks will wake up”, yet I see catastrophes daily rearing, globally. My electric utility says “wait ’til it’s more clear what [...] Read more...

be very unafraid: sustainability means embracing uncertainty

Written by Ken
10/28/2008
Many humans confuse fear with uncertainty. It’s an indirect relationship, actually, in the sense that what we fear is uncertainty. By stepping out of the delusion of certainty that has encapsulated so much of human life today, we can embrace the reality of uncertainty without fear. Since certainty is not an option, there should be no [...] Read more...

framework for sustainability thinking: 54 cubes in a matrix

Written by Ken
10/26/2008
Listening to Julian Darley* dish sustainability solutions, I couldn’t help thinking that our greatest need at the moment is ‘knowledge management’. That is, creating a framework for storing what we’re learning, based on a new mental map of what we need to know. And then growing a network for sharing and building this knowledge on the [...] Read more...

framework for sustainability thinking: 12 stops in a matrix

Written by Ken
10/26/2008
Listening to Julian Darley* dish sustainability solutions, I couldn’t help thinking that our greatest need at the moment is ‘knowledge management’. That is, creating a framework for storing what we’re learning, based on a new mental map of what we need to know. And then growing a network for sharing and building this knowledge on the [...] Read more...

wot’s wrong with this picture? why we need new mental maps

Written by Ken
10/24/2008
Alan Greenspan was “shocked” because his mental model of market self-regulation prevented him from seeing the emerging patterns of risk. He could not see the monster because his mental map had filtered out the possibility that it existed. Greenspans’ successors are likewise shocked that their fixes are failing. Yet, using their old mental maps, they’re simply [...] Read more...

poverty persists, inequality deepens: how smart is that?

Written by Ken
10/21/2008
Neocons and ‘free marketeers’ insist that America’s high growth economy with increasingly concentrated wealth is the highest and best use of our assets, and that poverty happens and some folks lose. So it goes. And, never mind that US poverty levels are still inching up, while inequality is much greater than other countries…and rising sharply. Over the [...] Read more...

shipping water to Kauai: an import strategy that’s all wet

Written by Ken
10/21/2008
Kauaians consume 4.4 billion gallons of Kauai water annually, and import another 2.2 billion gallons of ‘virtual water‘ in the goods and services we use. That’s the quick assessment based on a new water footprinting tool just out from Water Footprint Network that provides a quick estimate of individual water footprints based on average consumption patterns [...] Read more...

Las Vegas spotlight: leading with sustainability strategy

Written by Ken
10/20/2008
Surging concern for sustainability is prompting many cities to adopt strategies for conserving energy and encouraging ‘green’ business…and Las Vegas recently joined this list. The Las Vegas City Council voted in early September to invest in long-term strategies for reducing its reliance on foreign oil and non-renewable energy. Wudja believe this “city of excess” is already a [...] Read more...

bottom-up potential in Kauai energy transition

Written by Ken
10/20/2008
One caller during my Friday talk show for Malama Kauai said she was glad I didn’t win election to the KIUC board. Fancy that! It would have been a wasted effort, she suggested, and Kauai was moving toward green energy on its own. Fascinating! I told her my line about “if you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em“, [...] Read more...

air, ground and see attack: more sustainability conversation

Written by Ken
10/17/2008
So, I’ll be on air this Noon hosting the Friday talk show on KKCR normally honcho’d by Keone Kealoha and Andrea Brower of Malama Kauai. They’re at the Bioneers conference in San Rafael, and will be calling in to report on the opening days’ plenary roster of inspiring speakers. That’s the air attack bit. On the ground, [...] Read more...

on financial collapse and peak oil: one follows the other

Written by Ken
10/14/2008
Gail the Actuary made Hawaii headlines by questioning our sustainability some months back, and now she’s dishing an “I told you so” on the non-coincidence of peak oil and financial collapse (via oildrum). Says Gail, “it is not a coincidence that just as we are hitting peak oil, world monetary systems seem to be edging toward [...] Read more...

growers shall lead us: toward Hawaiian sustainability

Written by Ken
10/13/2008
Dirt farmers at either end of the islands chimed in to help turn up the volume in our Hawaii conversation about sustainability. Kauai’s Roy Oyama figured prominently in a recent sustainable ag conference, and Hawaii Island’s Richard Ha posted yesterday on “growing locally” (via starbulletin). Never mind that Ha was pushing approval of a new telescope deal [...] Read more...

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