World Population

Another of the speakers who came in and talked to the class was Henry Curtis, who is the executive director of Life of the Land.  He also was a contributing author of The Value of Hawaii: Knowing the Past, Shaping the Future in which he wrote the chapter on energy.

His discussion began with a quick history of world population growth.  He then moved to talk about urban populations, mentioning that London was the first city on earth to reach a population of 1 million (in circa 1800), and that Seoul, South Korea now has the highest population of any city in the world.  He also talked about how the year 2008 marked the tipping point in which more than half of the world's population were urban (as opposed to rural)

He then talked quickly about the history of energy resources in the U.S. and Hawaii.  He began by mentioning the 1859 discovery of oil in Pennsylvania which began a massive drive for oil in the U.S. and simultaneously saved the Right Whale from extinction since it was being hunted on massive proportions for its oil (which was used as a fuel source for providing light).  Currently 80% of Hawaii's energy comes from oil (which is obviously not produced in Hawaii) and 20% from coal (again not produced in Hawaii).  He discussed how there is political manipulation of the term "green energy" which allows for massive amounts of the coal used to be counted as green energy.

Sweet Home Waimanalo

For one of our classes we had the chance to visit Sweet Home Waimanalo Cafe in Waimanalo.  The location is right next to a McDonalds which is often used as a landmark for directions in the area.  There is a sense of irony and imagery with this location.  It shows a sense of the battle for two competing notions of food production and business models.  Sweet Home Waimanalo is dedicated to sustainability oriented business which supports the local community, by keeping as many levels of production as possible within the "modern 'ahupua'a" or community (traditionally based along Hawaii's natural topography of valleys).

We had the opportunity to visit the cafe's sister site up the road in Waimanalo.  This site used to be an ornamental plant farm as well as an area for horse boarding, but there is a grand plan for the location.  The plan is to create a sustainable organic farm which will be complimentary to the cafe.  So far, there isn't much in the way of the farm realized on the plot, but the project is only a few months into its realization.  The main feature of the property currently is the house which Kevin Vacarello lives in.  The home was made at a relatively low cost, and is a model for what a green house could be.  Many of the materials came from Reuse Hawaii from deconstructed homes, and the building is designed to waste as little energy as possible.  However, one problem I had with this model was that it seemed like much of the building's low cost was possible due to the use of volunteer work and donated materials and services.

The tour of the property was very enjoyable and informative, and I was lucky enough to be able to take home a large 'ulu (breadfruit) as well as an avocado from the trees on the property.  Once we got back to the cafe we got to eat the food we pre-ordered (I ordered the fish tacos which I loved) and we had a chance to talk story with our classmates over some 'awa that was prepared by the staff.

Continuum of Communication

One concept that I feel could be talked more about was Kevin Vacarello's personal theory of a continuum of communication.  He made a simple chart on the board of a cone going from left to right (the conetinuum of comunication, and within this center of this cone, with an equal size from left to right, ran a bar which was labeled reality.  So in other words, at the short end of the cone reality encompassed almost the entire space of the cone, while at the large end, reality encompassed very little of the space of the cone.  Across the top of the cone was labeled different fields of thought starting from the most quantitative to the most qualitative (starting with math at one end and extending to metaphysics on the other).  The list of these he thought of when he was drawing the diagram went in this order: math, physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, economy, politics, anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy/metaphysics.  This meant that the more qualitative of the fields, such as math, portrayed mostly reality; the rules are set and there is not much variation in the real world.  While at the other end, fields like philosophy have interpretations of the world which go far beyond simply explaining reality.  Any space in the cone outside of the bar of reality represented the amount of interpretation of the world each field possessed.

This cone showed the varying levels of interpretation which can sometimes restrict communication, and can be overcome through understanding their relationship to each other.

Routh Bolomet

Routh Bolomet was an... interesting speaker.  She gave an anecdote of how she came to Hawaii from California, where she did enough drugs to turn her brain into mush (as she explained a CAT scan showed).  She told a story of the organic farm she lived near on the north shore, and how that farm was actually spraying pesticides which was having an adverse affect on her health through its seeping into the water supply.

The rest of her presentation was a bit of a blur to me, as it involved a lot of philosophy I didn't really agree with.  For example, one of her quotes was that "you don't grow plants, you're growing the soil".  She made multiple mentions of how current science is essentially wrong in a lot of regards, and to this I had to tune my mind away from the presentation.  It's one thing for me to be open-minded, which I usually am, but in this case the argumentation had such a small base, I felt that she wasn't arguing for a side which I don't agree with, but rather something completely different (in some cases from common sense).  The presentation began to ramble on different philosophies and alternate religions (which included an alternative sect of Hinduism), to which I couldn't really follow.

Another concept she spoke of, which I can't remember the technical name, had to do with mass consensus.  She explained that if just 10,000 people learned how to do something, the entire human race would automatically know how to do it too, regardless of contact with any of those people.  She used the example of a case where she says a population of monkeys were taught how to peel bananas before eating them, and suddenly monkeys all over the world began to do that too.  This is a concept I don't agree with at all as I think there are many contradictory examples.  For one, it is a fact that more than 10,000 people currently know how to swim, but there are still many people who do not possess that ability.