SusHI

integrated systems approach to sustainability initiatives

Written by Ken
08/03/2008
San Francisco is not alone in using systems thinking to forge city initiatives in multiple, interconnected spheres of sustainability, yet let’s start there. Mayor Gavin Newsom just announced and updated over a dozen such initiatives, and made a point of noting the challenges to “synergistically” connect them within the complexity of city governance (via triplepundit). Of [...] Read more...

highway funding hits tipping point: let’s pull a 180

Written by Ken
08/01/2008
When I suggested to our Lihue town plan committee that we shouldn’t assume traffic is gonna keep growing, and that “auto dependence” (not “pedestrian friendliness”) was our biggest challenge, I got some blank stares. Then, the assurances kicked in: “We see no sign of people giving up their cars!” Committee members seemed relieved to have disposed [...] Read more...

Hawaii’s GHG task force less a force due to neglected tasks

Written by Ken
07/31/2008
We know Hawaii’s new Task Force for greenhouse gas emissions reduction is busily at work, if only because DBEDT says they are. Still, it’s thoroughly frustrating trying to track their progress, given dead links and serious time-lags in posting to the DBEDT site. Imagine my surprise, for example, on learning that McKinsey (of abatement fame) had completed [...] Read more...

dude, get yer carbon goggles! on footprinting in second life

Written by Ken
07/31/2008
Wanna “learn about real-world emissions, get a feel for the relative carbon cost of a kettle or car, without reading a spreadsheet?” Try Carbon Goggles, a new project from Jim Purbrick, inside Second Life (via beyondthebeyond). Now we’re talking! You can tap or tag real world carbon footprint data to the virtual counterparts of objects like a [...] Read more...

new widget for your what’sit: footprinting gets easier

Written by Ken
07/31/2008
How’s this for a kewl tool that can help you learn about your ‘ecological footprint’: a widget that shows emissions for a variety of products and services (via GilFriend). That’s right, a firm called EcoSynergy makes this widget available in four flavors. I’m showing the one for food, and there’s also a widget for household stuff, [...] Read more...

grill Kauai candidates on sustainability this go-round

Written by Ken
07/30/2008
Here’s your chance to see who knows what and has a vision for a sustainable Kauai: the Eco-Roundtable Candidates Forum. Next week Tuesday starting at 5:30PM in the Lihu’e Convention Hall, you can meet and greet and grill all three mayoral candidates and most of the 22 good citizens running for the 7 County Council seats. This [...] Read more...

building community from the bottom up: starting in my nabe

Written by Ken
07/30/2008
Residents on the eastside of Kauai have never had a community association, although our island history is full of wonderful leadership stories coming out of such groups in Kilauea, Koloa, Kekaha and other towns (via TGI). That’s changing now as the new Wailua-Kapa`a Neighborhood Association takes form…and I’ve agreed to join its new Board of Directors. WKNA [...] Read more...

export subsidies for biodiesel: the ’splash-n-dash’ scam

Written by Ken
07/28/2008
Betcha didn’t know US taxpayers fork over a $1 subsidy for every gallon of biodiesel that is blended in the U.S. for export later. The idea was to give a nudge to the U.S. biofuel industry, yet here, too, America’s ill-fated biofuel policy is boomeranging (via transforminghawaii). To make that extra buck, oil tankers full of [...] Read more...

put that heavy stuff behind you: get a bike trailer

Written by Ken
07/28/2008
You know that trailer I got to hitch to my recumbent ebike? Yeah, the one that I use to haul all my shopping and laundry between Kapaa town and our treehouse. It seems others are seeing the value of such a switch. Now, folks in Canberra can borrow a bike trailer from their local sustainability organization [...] Read more...

electrifying crab story, and crabbin’ about Kauai electricity

Written by Ken
07/25/2008
Good news and bad this AM for readers of tea leaves. The bad news is thousands of crabs turning up dead on Poipu beach. The good news is KIUC gets top rankings for solar power capacity among all utilities nationwide (via pacbiznews). The bad news is KIUC’s so small this can’t be good news. Good buddy Jean Souza [...] Read more...

blood and gore in the blogosphere: on Al’s all-in speech

Written by Ken
07/24/2008
Sheesh! Ya woulda tho’t Al Gore had enough cred by now to avert the slings and arrows. Wot matters most is that he’s pushing greener, sooner, cheaper…80% by 2020, versus the G8’s 50% by 2050. Wot matters least is whether Gore’s the best advocate for this more urgent sustainability agenda. David Roberts slams Tom Brokaw for his “awful” [...] Read more...

steffen fetches foresight for one-planet prosperity

Written by Ken
07/22/2008
Just in case ya missed it, here’s a link to one of my heros with some words of wisdom and some perspective on our pickle that everyone should see and hear. Alex Steffen, who runs the worldchanging operation, is among the best at tying it all together. Not surprisingly, this video is from the recent ‘Emerging Tech’ [...] Read more...

why do we want some sustainability?

Written by Ken
07/22/2008
Like breathing, sustainability should be unremarkable. So why is our daily discourse filled with concerns about the sustainability of our human support system? Face it, we couldn’t have done a better job at creating unsustainability if we had planned it. Here comes catastrophic climate change in the ecology sphere, and peak oil in the economy sphere, [...] Read more...

is Gore’s plan affordable? on money for renewables

Written by Ken
07/22/2008
Let’s see: at $343 million for each day of the Iraq war, we’re throwing $125 billion annually down that hole. What if we had that amount to invest in renewable energy generation? Would that be enough to achieve the 10-year goal Al Gore spelled out in his speech last Thursday? (via huffingtonpost) Yup, says Jerome Guillet, an [...] Read more...

on giving ecosystem services the value they deserve

Written by Ken
07/21/2008
What a difference valuation of our ecosystems makes! How so? Writing in the current PNAS, Stanford’s Pam Matson and Gretchen Daily note “a growing feeling of Renaissance in the conservation community” that “flows from the promise in reaching for new approaches that align economic forces with conservation, and that explicitly link human and environmental well-being.” After all, [...] Read more...

blue green convergence: on footprints and politics

Written by Ken
07/21/2008
The same states ranked by Forbes among the ‘greenest’ also happen to be ‘blue’ states, notes John Laumer (via treehugger). Note the average scores of ‘red’ and ‘blue’ states, and check what sets the ‘red’ states apart. According to Forbes, ‘red’ suffers from “a mix of toxic waste, lots of pollution and consumption and no clear [...] Read more...

click here for relief: making gas signs for the frustrated

Written by Ken
07/20/2008
My scifi fav Bruce Sterling promises that “gosh, these are fun! (via beyondthebeyond)” Wudja believe an online widget that lets you create your own version of the sign that advertises gas prices at your local station? One year ago, I posted this version of the sign showing prices ranging from “Arm” to “Leg” to “Both”, with a [...] Read more...

Hawaii’s interisland shipping getting greener

Written by Ken
07/18/2008
Who knew that new barge plying the Kauai channel twice weekly was part of a green thing at Young Brothers. Yup, the Ho`omaka Hou and its sister barge Maka`ala represent “a new generation of barges, which are modern, fuel efficient and environmentally sensitive,” according to Glenn Hong, president of Young Brothers (via honoluluadvertiser). Kauai got the first [...] Read more...

dude, where’s the reef fish? on Hawaii’s challenge

Written by Ken
07/18/2008
Gotta confess I couldn’t make much of the reef study recently published by NOAA. Lots of data, maps and charts, and no clear summary of the implications for our islands. Now, we know what it all means for Hawaii, as two of our top researchers presented the findings at Waikiki Aquarium (via honoluluadvertiser). Sure, there are multiple [...] Read more...

Plan B: cutting emissions 80 percent by 2020

Written by Ken
07/18/2008
We know what needs to be done to reduce CO2 emissions 80 percent by 2020, says Lester Brown. In 5 steps, Brown shows how a “worldwide mobilization at wartime speed” could get’r done (via treehugger). “None of these initiatives depends on new technologies”, says Brown. “All that is needed now is leadership.” Calling Plan B 3.0 “the alternative [...] Read more...

efficiency as a business: on sustainable energy utilities

Written by Ken
07/17/2008
Halfway through composing this post on sustainable energy utility (SEU) initiatives popping up in Vermont and Oregon, it began to look like Hawaii had already launched something similar…Or did we? Here’s the deal: you pay, say, 3% on top of your electricity bill to fund an SEU whose business is to save (not sell) you energy [...] Read more...

greener jets from greener company: Bombardier soars

Written by Ken
07/16/2008
Did we say that maximum energy efficiency has already been squeezed into modern aircraft? Wrong! Check out these nexgen commercial jets from Bombardier (via WBCSD). The Canadian jet maker promises its new C series jets will deliver “up to 20 per cent fuel burn advantage as well as up to 15 per cent improved cash operating costs [...] Read more...

beating fertilizer inflation: piss on your garden

Written by Ken
07/16/2008
Treehugger serves up the hot poop on on fertilizer from sewage, yet we learn that questions remain about health effects should you go this route in your garden. So, forget the poop, for now, yet wot about the piss? Turns out human urine is a great source of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous. In other words, gardeners across [...] Read more...

presto, chango: what’s achievable in Hawaii sustainability?

Written by Ken
07/14/2008
Seems like we’re into snapping the finger as we bark through the litany of initiatives required to switch away from fossil fuels. As if we now know what needs doing, so let’s do it. If only the transition to sustainability were that easy! State Senator Will Espero ticks off the ‘achievable’ stuff here, and attorney Jay Fidell [...] Read more...

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