This weeks featured discussion is on sustainability: what are some ideas that could be implemented in order to promote sustainability within the modern economy? Thought: If capitalism is dependent on continual growth we will soon run out of resources, is there a way to promote capitalism and sustainability at the same time? i.e efficiency and sufficiency
We will also be highlighting one organization every two weeks that has made an impact in social change around the world. If you would like to nominate a group feel free to post a comment including their website address. Check our blogroll for a quick link.
This weeks organizational spotlight is: Sierra Club
Mystery Man?
Guess who this….and win!!!
Congratulations Bea-Clare you win!!!
The person in the picture is Mikheil Saakashvilli, President of Georgia whose country was recently invaded by Russia. Recent developments have Russia pulling out of Georgia but it sure was a scary week in that region of the world.
Freedom is Universal 
Being in the center of the pacific ocean Hawaii relies heavily on imported goods in order to survive, in case of emergency the Hawaiian population would be in serious trouble if those shipments were to stop.
Please research and comment on ideas and solutions to curbing hawaii’s dependence on imported goods, and how we could reduce our dependency on foreign energy and food products. Please cite sources and author(s) of any information you would like to add to the discussion. Have fun!! the future depends on it.
….also the first person to post an answer to the mystery man in this forum will receive international fame and fortune on the next examination!!!
note: Please use only your first name when answering or commenting on any post used in this forum. thank you.
joe shmooo
mike
Hi Coach 😀
And I think the person on the page is Mikheil Nik’olozis dze Saakashvili, the president of Georgia or something….
-Bea Clare
wow!!! good job! Bea Clare you definitely have been watching the news . So with that I will give a cyber shoutout of 3 cheers to the winner!!! hip hip Hooray! hip hip Hooray! hip hip Hooray!5 points for you
The person in the picture is Mikheil Saakashvilli, President of Georgia whose country was recently invaded by Russia. Recent developments have Russia pulling out of Georgia but it sure was a scary week in that region of the world.
heyyyy 🙂
hi! 🙂
Bah, a moment too late. The “democratic-leader” part at the end of the URL was a big hint, and combined with a google search for the insignia, I ended up with Mikheil Saakashvili.
If farming were to prosper in Hawaii once more, the need for imported foods would dwindle, and we would be another step closer to being self-sufficient.
The problem is this: Farming in Hawaii is a dying career. Farmers just don’t make as much money as other career choices that require less sweat. Laborers, land tax, water bill, tool costs, and etc.; all subtract from an agriculturalists’ bottom line.
My solution is this: annoy our government for a bill to pass that would give farmers in Hawaii extra benefits, much like how non-profit organizations are tax-exempt. Things like special low-rate government loans for the continued success of the farm, to increase the pay for the farmhands.
Solar energy is okay for now, but the fact that Solar panels work off of the sun’s UV waves, rather than just light, means that we’ll still be exposed to the bad effects, as well as the good effects (such as Vitamin D and prevention of SAD). In the end, I guess the good outweighs the bad here, but I still would like to see something better come along.
Oh, and if you didn’t get the nickname: It’s Honma, but pronounced similar to “hawn-mass-ter”
hola.
aw man, bea clare!! 😛
good jobbbb. 🙂
Because of Hawaii’s dependence on imported goods, an emergency would be a dire situation. In order to gain independence, Hawaii would need an increase in production of farming and agricultre (growing food, raising livestock, etc.) As for energy indepedence, Hawaii can have return to sugar cane production, to produce ethanol, like Brazil (http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/sep06/ethanol.htm). Conservation of our everyday resources is also important, such as conserving water and recycling material to produce new goods.
wasssssssssssssssssuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuupppppppppp
DGFHFHGFBHHBNKUKNUKMMHIKDTJFSHJ
LAUREN ANCHETA
Hey coach!
wow clare you got it! your such a smarty pants. 🙂
i should watch the news more often. haha.
-Joy
hey wassup
-Cole(aka Captain Awesome)
Glenn was here.
im jus sayn hey & wassup again jus in case my first one didnt work.lol
I think the person is Mikheil Saakashvilli the President of Georgia whose country was invaded by Russia
heyy coach(:
okayy i think that we should STOP building houses cuz we have wayy too much. instead we should have more crops of rice or something. or at least have more plants that make food(:
-bliselda
Nice work so far, and welcome to the forum, It’s good to see you all online.
I like the discussion on farming and Hawaii. What are some ways we could encourage agricultural development on both a personal and governmental level? With land being so expensive, how would a farmer ever hope to produce enough to pay for it? what are some ways a government could encourage farming and make it more dependable? The Honmaster has some good insights, good work.
Can I get some more people to add to this discussion with some new creative ideas?
hello
waddup fellas
Hi everyone!
yo yo
wasuup!?
Another solution would be the construction of nuclear power plants. In my opinion, with these plants, Hawaii would no longer have the need to rely on foreign resources to fuel the electricity here. That could be a start on self-sustainability?!
😀
*Joke topic*
Everyone wants energy, be it electricity or oil. I think we should capitalize on it by selling energy from electricity and natural gases. We could call this company… Enron! Yeah! Nothing could go wrong there!
*end joke topic*
Hey 🙂
As The Honmaster pointed out, farming is a dying career here in Hawaii; however if that probelm could be resolved, I think expanding our agriculture wwould greater decrease our dependence on imported goods. For example, Hawaii can return to growing sugar cane and use it to produe ethanol as a source of energy.
(By the way, I posted Tuesday night, not sure if it went though though)
hmm…well it seems like most of the good ideas were taken but whatever. I think we could try to develop some sort of natural fuel source to use instead of gas. cuz $4 a gallon is way too much.
In order to preserve sustainability in modern times we need to keep upholding rules and regulations. To give us a sense of restriction. In my opinion, our economy can greatly decline and deteriorate from people “cheating” their way to the top.For example, people cheating on taxes,cutting out the middle man,and taking the easy way out. These are some issues that could help damage our economy. Even though it may seem small it can really make a big impact.
To help maintain our prosperity we not only need to think about the economy and financial issues. We need to work on our character.By displaying perseverance,honesty,and humility. These qualities can really change your outlook on life,and also effect your way of working and making a difference in the world. As a result, we as citizens of our country and our island can make a change.
In Hawaii we can become more self sufficient by eliminating some of the imported goods from the mainland and other parts of the world. While increasing the natural resources we have here on our islands. For example, agriculture is a big part of Hawaii. We can increase the sizes of the crops and even create new ones with a more wide range of things we need to survive. Instead of planning on new tourist attractions, new transportation,more buildings,and may other unnecessary endeavors we need to re-focus on more important issues like maintaining our islands. Making it a more self sufficient and less dependent on others to help support our people.
i can say becoming self-sufficient is to learn how to preserve food by canning, use a bicycle instead of motorized vehicle and collect and use rain water instead of municiple or well water.
I purpose we the state of Hawaii start farming cows lots and lots of cows and harvest there “methane gas” into a usable substance and or gasoline ending our epidemic and feed the hungry. no one has a better idea then that boooooya
♥In order to preserve sustainability in the islands, i believe that we need to stop focusing on unnecessary things like new tourist attractions and things of that nature, even though it’ll boost tourism, we cant rely solely on that to sustain ourselves. Therefore, i think that we need to work on our agriculture, like Matthew said, we should give farmers added benefits to make farming more appealing. At least if it appeals to the people, it wont matter the cost of the land because they’ll be willing to spend the money because of the profit to be made. The people of Hawaii need to realize that we are wayy to dependent on foreign fuel and food poducts this way well be more dedicated on the islands’ sustainability.Also, using solar power would be a smart idea. Also, we NEED to do something about fuel and energy costs!! We definitely cant be so dependent on getting our fuel from elsewhere, etc…even i would like to hear wat other people have to say about the fuel situation. 🙂
We can become self-sufficient by using island grown products. Like I know that there are farms and the islands and there is also Dole Plantation, so if we eat the fruits, vegetables, and the animals which are produced from local farms and plantations then there will be no need for us to import goods from the mainland. <—————— I Give Christian All The Credit for being the smartest in the world.
Since people already covered food and farming and such…
So, I think it’s pretty ridiculous how many cars there are on the road. Lots of cars traveling lots of miles = lots of gas = importing lots of oil. Hawaii could become more self-sustainable by reducing the amount of gas we use in order to reduce the amount of gas we need to import. But that means that we’d need to reduce the amount of driving we do, which is not so terribly hard considering we live on an island. So it’s not like everything is incredibly far away or anything.
Instead of driving, use your legs and walk everywhere that’s walking distance. Get a bike! Saves you money AND you get exercise.. and they’re just fun to ride.
mannnn this island is too small… i agree with you guys, why build more buildings or tourist attractions? what i think we should have is more roads in ewa beach too much traffic!!!
i think armando doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
We need more farmers to plant crops and to raise animals. And we need to stop over fishing the waters, or we will never have any food. Or we can all just become canabals and eat eachother until the last man is standing….but if that was to happen then lauren would win!
I was reading on a blog site about how hawaii could produce its own energy by using the “oceans natural thermal temperature gradiants” and waves instead of using petroleum. Since 33% of hawaii’s electricity comes from petroleum and the cost of crude oil has been raised, I think we could use these techniques to save money and in the end use the money to make more farms and crops or something.
Anyways, here’s a little math that talks about the oceans energy, etc..”On an average day, 23 million square miles of ocean seawater absorb the equivalent energy of 250 billion barrels of oil. If 10% of this energy were extracted, that would be equivalent to nearly 5 times the amount of energy the world consumes per day [8]”.
Like i said, save money producing our own energies and using that money on farms instead of building more malls and housing.
oh by the way the site is webberenergyblog.com..:P
well i think every house in hawaii should have a small garden with fruits and vegetables, two chicken, a goat for milk, a cow for meat, one FAT pig, and one dog for the filipinos. Then we should catch the A bus to work or school, so less polution and less traffic. I know this wont happen, i dont even think we can live off the land because we are too westernized and wont have enough food to go all around.Good enough ah.
k -shooteez
ohh not to be off in the subject but what do you guys think about haveing rails in hawaii like how would it affect hawaiis traffic? would it make a big diffrence just wondering….
The train/tram thing would be a good topic for next week. A few candidates for Mayor mentioned how it feels like Mufi is forcing the Steel-on-Steel rails on us.
I think what hawaii needs to be self sufficient is nuclear power plants. I know Clare stated this earlier but shes right if we had those we would be pretty self sufficient in opinion.
P.S. I had to write another reply because the last one i sent on the 15th didnt go through somehow.
Hi everyone,
I was looking through all of your comments and i noticed that each of you brought up a good point. Hawaii does really depend on foreign countries and the mainland for sustainability. I also agree that Hawaii is way too focused on building new tourist attractions and other things that we do not need for sustainability. Instead, Hawaii needs to focus on arranging for other products and more of what we already have to be produced here on the islands. The United States is already in bad condition itself because we are all having economical problems, and for Hawaii it is just twice as hard. This is all because we are depending on other countries and the mainland to import our goods in. Now, i dont know how we are going to go about doing this. but we really need to try and find a way to have more farms and factories or whatever we need. I mean if you look around the island, Hawaii has a lot of land that we do not use and it may not be big enough to have everything that we need. At least we dont have to depend on other for practically everything.
The economical problem is causing gas prices to go up, the marketing prices are crazy..it is hard to buy and sell houses, and because the gas prices are going up, the electiricty and all of that is going up as well.
But with all this being said, My main point is that we need to stop depending on the mainland and other countries to import everything to us. We should find a way to build most of the things that we need, here on the island, and then maybe whenever it is necessary, we can look for the mainland and other countries to help us..a little.
OkAY.iM dONE.i MAY hAVE REPEAtEd OthERS,,bUt thiS iS jUSt MY OPiNiON.. 🙂
People absolutely love Hawaiian culture. You can make a living in Japan just teaching Hula three times a week. On the mainland, I guarantee you popularity if you play the ukulele proficiently. Tourism is Hawaii’s greatest cash-cow and without it, we probably would be living in grass huts and trying to get our Paddler’s License. After all, the only past alternatives Hawaii had were Sandalwood (which Liholiho screwed up) and
slaver–I mean “plantations”.
Jennifer actually brought up something I don’t think I mentioned in my original proposal: land availability. My Great-Grandfather’s farm’s land lease expired 4 years ago, and is just going to waste. We do have lots of space, it’s just that the cost of making the land usable outweighs the profit to be had.
Liquid-Hydrogen propulsion systems FTW
Ok well since my last one was a little on the short side heres another idea. Well i think we could start making “green cities”, cities that are made to be more eco friendly. We would have to make plans for them though which might be tough considering how difficult our local government can be. Anyway, these “green cities” could produce most if not all of their own power, or if not that focus on another aspect of enviromental technology. This idea would probably not be able to succeed without lots of hard work from all the people of our state. Back to topic though, if we do start eco-towns like this it would probably help hawaii sustain itself.
To be honest i dont think we would survive if the other countries or the mainland stop sending us food and stuff. So what now we would have to depend on ourselves for food, and i agree with you guys because what if that really happens how would we survive.
But in case i think we should do somthing about it instead of just building more houses or tourist attractions spots and maybe build like more plantations! isn’t it there less plantations in hawaii now there not making any money at all? How can we survive if plantations keep closing down because didnt dole in kunia close down like couple years ago? isn’t hawaii known for the best pineapples?
Good work. especially to Jennifer, Matthew, Cole, and Aramando!!!
Way to bring some great insight into the discussion and realizing how important it is to live independent of foreign trade goods and to be able to live within our own means. This will become more and more important in our growing world economy.
The new topic for next week is up and so is the mystery man.
Good Luck!