SusHI

back to Cascadia: networking with sustainability groups

Written by Ken
10/07/2008
There’s something vibrant and hopeful emanating from the sustainability network in the Pacific Northwest– otherwise known as Cascadia. Seems a worthy destination for a visitor from the tropics (moi), even if it were not also home to my second son and fourth grandot. So, Susan and I will spew some carbon on the ‘red eye’ tomorrow night [...] Read more...

Hawaii gardens to go: sustainability one yard at a time

Written by Ken
10/07/2008
Jay Ogden believes organic gardening should be easy so we can all grow low-cost good food in our own backyard, and he wants to teach the world to grow their own food, starting with Hawaii schools. Ogden, who previously studied at the Permaculture Institute of Austrailia, just launched Ogden Agri-Services Corporation which features “Gardens-To-Go”. This is “a [...] Read more...

running on empty: how’s sleep-walking working for you?

Written by Ken
10/06/2008
What a relief to see our Kauai oil barge pulling into the harbor yesterday! Matt Simmons got me back to worrying about this as I watched him address the recent ASPO conference in Sacramento (via youtube). You thought the meltdown of our financial markets was fast? Our “energy cushion” could disappear in a heartbeat, says Simmons. So, [...] Read more...

the fourth R: new tool for sustainability assurance

Written by Ken
10/06/2008
Actually, it’s not an R, it’s a P…as in ‘precycling’, yet it ranks right up there with reduce, reuse and recycle. Precycling is about accounting for the post-use phase of products before they’re made. James Greyson’s been pushing us to acknowledge upfront what a product will likely to contribute to waste and resources depletion. What could be [...] Read more...

don’t peak! on sex and the Simmons soothsayers

Written by Ken
10/03/2008
Having trouble focusing on peak oil? Don’t watch this video, and if you do, don’t turn the volume down (via treehugger). This is “education by any means necessary”, says Oily Cassandra. She’s hot…about our complacency. And, yes, she uses her body to get your attention. “What we see around us is a system that is burning up [...] Read more...

Mo bettah: Hawaii’s energy guy on bold actions needed now

Written by Ken
10/03/2008
Not surprisingly, my hero Maurice “Mo” Kaya was the star at Kauai’s renewable energy conference last month (via KEDB). Hawaii’s former state energy coordinator is calling out a warning: “the crisis is here! Continued oil dependence weakens Hawaii’s economy, and it ain’t getting any better!” “A sense of urgency is needed”, and “traditional sources of leadership have [...] Read more...

cool tools rule! the drool bit for DIY

Written by Ken
10/03/2008
We’re gonna need to make more of our own stuff as part of a relocalization strategy…which means we’re gonna need a whole new kind of tool shop. Recall my “ark for tools” where we preserve the best ‘modern’ tools…past the decline of the current civilization. Enter TechShop, a prototype facility in Menlo Park and coming soon to [...] Read more...

Ariyoshi and me: have we progressed since the ‘02 writings?

Written by Ken
10/02/2008
Hard to believe Hawaii’s former guv George Ariyoshi has been writing about sustainability since launching his column in Hawaii Business back in August ‘02. And, hard to believe my Kauai sustainability book was also published six years ago. (Sheesh! Time flies even when we’re NOT havin’ fun…heh) Back in August ‘02, Ariyoshi opined, “To correct our course, [...] Read more...

we are so screwed: Letterman rants on global warming

Written by Ken
10/02/2008
“Something is hinckey,” says David Letterman in a global warming rant on his Late Night show last month (via gristmill). “I’m so upset about it I can almost not find the words. It’s too late, and I’ll tell you why. We have had no leadership”, says Letterman. “We could cut carbon emissions by 100% tomorrow, and the [...] Read more...

shocking news: the financial crisis ain’t the half of it

Written by Ken
10/01/2008
Watching the Bushies try to deal with failing financial institutions, one thing seems clear: “the speed at which shocks spread in this globally interconnected system is faster than the response time of governmental institutions.” So says John Robb, noting we are likely to fare badly amid a “never-ending series of global system shocks derived from a [...] Read more...

deep thoughts: why shallow thinking will kill us

Written by Ken
10/01/2008
The race is on to find technologies that will solve the global warming problem, yet this “shallow” thinking focuses on symptoms of unsustainability, while something more “deep” that addresses the underlying causes is what we need. Eileen Crist worries that “if greenhouse gases were restricted successfully by means of technological shifts and innovations, the root cause [...] Read more...

building sustainability science: going beyond panaceas

Written by Ken
09/30/2008
Sustainability science aims to find solutions for diverse and complex problems. Yet, how do we go beyond abstract cure-all proposals for achieving sustainable systems? Late last year, a special issue of PNAS sought to “challenge the presumption that scholars can generate simple, predictive models of linked systems and deduce general solutions to problems of the overuse [...] Read more...

smart, safe & fair: on sustainability strategy

Written by Ken
09/29/2008
The human support system is failing faster than you can flick a hockey stick. Fact is, all of our system metrics have gone exponential–fuel, money, emissions, population–so the trend lines look like hockey sticks. This system failure follows from our failure to see the whole system. Now, our new ‘mental map‘ of this support system shows three [...] Read more...

silence will not protect you: telling kids about climate change

Written by Ken
09/29/2008
Wanna help Sandra Steingraber write a kids book on global warming? Steingraber’s asking for help because it’s “not clear how to describe what happens when the already-rocking boat is in danger of flipping over.” How would you tell a six year old where all the birds and bees have gone? (via orionmag). Don’t talk about this stuff [...] Read more...

deal with this: Stephen Miller on Hawaii climate change

Written by Ken
09/29/2008
Great video here as Stephen Miller addressed the annual conference of island conservationists in July with another blockbuster presentation (as previously reported in EnviroHI). Miller anticipates what might happen to the islands’ landscape ecology and its implications for resource managers in this excellent (no, mandatory) review of the science for all who care about sustainability in [...] Read more...

place-based sustainability science: governance strategy needed

Written by Ken
09/28/2008
How will your community transition toward sustainability? Not alone and in the dark, one hopes. When the world’s best thinkers are stressing the need to prepare for climate change, peak oil, and growing social unrest, we might hope that every community is placing a top-of-mind priority on their sustainability strategy. Many transition towns are forging sustainability strategies [...] Read more...

Kanu Hawaii gets help promoting island sustainability

Written by Ken
09/24/2008
Haven’t heard of Kanu Hawaii? That’s about to change, thanks to some big-time public exposure coming to this new nonprofit that seeks to become a “movement of people drawing on island strengths to make Hawaii a model of environmental sustainability, economic resilience and compassionate community.” See, Kanu is the recipient of the Ad 2 Honolulu pro [...] Read more...

on gaming the future: Superstruct launches Oct 6

Written by Ken
09/24/2008
Ready for Superstruct? This futurism game is all about facing down humans’ five big superthreats, and it’s coming to a ‘puter near you a week from next Monday. Superthreats? Quarantine, Power Struggle, Outlaw Planet, Ravenous and Generation Exile…Each of these makes the others worse. “Superstructing has allowed us to survive in the past and it will help [...] Read more...

at the County Council: ’sustainability thinking’ speech online

Written by Ken
09/23/2008
To help celebrate SusHI’s 2nd birthday, I took the time to learn how to use HandBrake (a great open source tool) and converted my speech video into a movie format and got it uploaded. Ten months ago I was invited by Councilmember JoAnn Yukimura to make the same presentation to the County Council that she had [...] Read more...

SusHI twos: a backward look at forward motion

Written by Ken
09/23/2008
Just 2 years, 1,250 posts and 850,000 visitors ago, SusHI was launched. In recent months, from 40,000 to 50,000 visitors have stopped by and clicked on an average of 2.4 posts. That’s an average of nearly 1,150 daily unique visitors throughout this period. Recently it’s been hovering around 1,500 daily. Kewl. So much has changed in [...] Read more...

Simmons Hawaii-bound to speak on the energy challenge

Written by Ken
09/23/2008
Great conference coming on November 20 at the Big Island’s Fairmont Orchid Hawaii, where Republican energy consultant and industry insider Matt Simmons will be the keynote speaker. Hawaii Energy Challenge 08 will “assemble keen minds to realistically assess the rising cost of imported oil, its import for key sectors of Hawaii’s economy and impact on island [...] Read more...

which city is least unsustainable? on rankings by SustainLane

Written by Ken
09/22/2008
Never mind that Cleveland and Milwaukee jumped ahead of Honolulu in the latest ’sustainable city’ rankings (via treehugger). Does it make you feel better that we’re ahead of Albuquerque? Do Portland residents care that NYC is creeping up on their number 1 ranking? Let’s face it, less unsustainable is a long way from sustainable. All these rankings can [...] Read more...

how to undermine today: ignore tomorrow

Written by Ken
09/21/2008
Amidst ongoing wars, accelerating economic collapse, and cascading environmental ruin, can we afford to spend our time thinking about the future? Especially when these challenges are massive and frightening, it’s easy to dismiss futurism as self-indulgence, right? Not so fast, says Jamais Cascio. “Futures thinking is perhaps better understood as an immune system for our civilization” (via [...] Read more...

is it safe? on health impacts of global warming

Written by Ken
09/20/2008
My stump speech on sustainability thinking incorporates the latest framing by suggesting safety as the appropriate criteria in the ecology sphere. As I run down the litany of ecological threats, I go: “Is that safe? It’s not. You know.” So when health impacts of global warming start showing up in major US media, I jump for joy [...] Read more...

another speech, another spark: on the Hawaiian audience

Written by Ken
09/20/2008
Don’t know why native Hawaiians aren’t a bigger presence in our islands’ sustainability conversation, since this would seem to be their issue. After all, who knew more about sustainability than their ancestors who lived out here in the middle of the Pacific without metal and trade. Still, my speech to the distinguished members of Hale O Na [...] Read more...

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