Uncategorized, Where We Live

Merrie Monarch: Intense!

I mentioned last time that my daughter, 8, is dancing in the Merrie Monarch hula festival this year for the first time, and so this is our first experience with what goes into preparations for the big hula event.

The number of practices with her hālau has stepped up a lot. During these last two weeks before their performance, they’ve gone from meeting twice a week, as they do during the year, to practicing most weekdays from two to four hours a day.

As a parent, let me just say WOW. That’s on top of school and homework (finding time for her to do homework is taking a lot of parental ingenuity) and trying to make sure she gets enough sleep at night.

But it’s only for a very short time, and as I watch these kids practice on that stage at the Edith Kanaka‘ole Stadium I think about how very much it’s worth it.

I marvel at how much they are learning. It is huge, and great, how much they are learning about the Hawaiian culture – stories, chant, hula, history, ways of being, ways of learning, respect, continuity, integrity, community, cooperation and more.

And they are also learning how to come together and be a part of the total hālau by dancing with the adults, whom they don’t usually dance with the rest of the year. They are learning confidence, and how to perform in front of 5000 people. They are learning to take direction.

They are learning how to work hard at something that’s important to them. Is there any greater lesson?

These kids are working hard but there are so many smiles at rehearsal. My daughter is loving it. She keeps telling me she likes practicing every day, because she feels herself getting better each day in a way that’s different from when they meet twice a week.

What I love is seeing her take part in something that’s so much bigger than herself, than our usual world, and enjoying it and fitting herself into it so well. What more rewarding thing is there for a parent to see than their young child successfully taking on a big challenge?

A reporter and videographer from Honolulu were at the stadium and taped part of their rehearsal for the television news last night. It’s starting!

Stay tuned and I’ll report back again.

Community, Music, Where We Live

Merrie Monarch: Cultural Traditions

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I’m not a hula person, but my daughter is and this year is the first year she’s dancing in the annual Merrie Monarch hula festival. If you live in Hawai‘i, you know that’s a big deal here. It’s a hula competition held every spring in Hilo, and it’s one that people come to from around the world.

My daughter, who’s 8, is dancing with her hālau on the Hō‘ike (Exhibition) night, and this is the first time I’m experiencing firsthand what all goes into preparing for the Merrie Monarch.
We’ve been working on her costume, which started with each parent and child going into the forest and cutting down a hau tree. Wow! Pretty intense, but so interesting!
(This blog talks a lot about sustainability, and if you don’t live here that might sound unsustainable to you. Please note that hau trees grow like weeds. I don’t think you could wipe out the hau even if you tried.)
I have since learned how to strip the bark, clean it, and separate the layers, so we can braid it into cordage that we’re using in her costume.
Similarly, we have gathered lau hala – the leaves of the hala tree – and trimmed and cleaned them. When I mentioned that I got a box-type stripper – it lets you strip hala leaves to an even width so you can weave them or use them to make hula implements, for instance, as below – Richard said it makes him think of his grandmother’s house where there were always rolls (kūka‘a) of prepped lau hala.
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It was always the same in this house where I live, too, which was my grandmother’s home and her mother’s before her, and where there used to be hula and weaving and more.
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Somehow that managed to skip a couple generations, but I love that once again, this house is sometimes filled with hula and ‘oli (chanting), and that rolls of lau hala and skeins of handmade hau cordage and handmade hula implements, like this ‘ulī‘ulī we made, again fill our home.

Travel

Dispatches from the Philippines: Looking Back at Our Trip

There were multiple missions going on during our trip to the Philippines. Rose Bautista, Hawai‘i County’s immigration specialist, was our contact person as the people on our trip went back and forth. I’d known of her but never met her, and it was nice to meet her in person. She and Paulette Cainglit were constantly working to make sure everything was going smoothly.

Rose arranged for our delegation to meet the folks she connected with at the U.S. Embassy. In my junior high school days, I was a Word War II history buff, and it was very interesting for me to realize that the trial of General Yamashita, the tiger of Malaya, was held in the very room where we were standing.

We met Anthony Mira, who is in charge of the TSA in the Philippines with a task of protecting the U.S. from a specific al Queda plot. We had no idea. He happens to be from Kaua‘i. It made us all feel like we were connected to the world. Then we were briefed by Jesse Robredo, Secretary of the Interior for the Philippines. A very engaging person, he briefed us about how Philippines governance is organized.

We thought that was the end of our second day in Manila but Rose had heard that the USS Blue Ridge, flagship of the U.S. 7th Fleet, had just arrived in port and that possibly some of our group could go on board for the welcoming ceremonies.

Well, Rose would not settle for a few of us attending and asked if we all could attend. And she was successful.

Next thing we knew, we were climbing the gangway past Navy people in formation and at attention, who were welcoming us abroad. It was going to be a bigger deal than we had imagined.

USS_blueridge

The U.S. 7th Fleet is everywhere in the Pacific. It makes regular port calls in the Philippines, Korea, Australia, Korea, Guam and Thailand, among other places.

At any given time, there are 60-70 ships, 200-300 aircraft and 40,000 Navy and Marine Corps personnel assigned to the fleet. Five of the largest armed forces lie in its area of operation. Half of the world’s population lies in the 7th Fleet’s area of responsibilities. Going up to the deck of the USS Blue Ridge, flagship of the 7th Fleet, we could tell it was going to be a big big deal.

Admiral Swift, Commander of the 7th Fleet, made introductory remarks and he mentioned our Hawaiian delegation. He said that he lived in Hawai‘i for a while and so we were ‘ohana.

I was floored that here we were, a small delegation from the Big Island, on the deck of the USS Blue Ridge, flagship of the U.S. 7th Fleet, being mentioned in ceremonies in Manila Bay.

More importantly though, was the friendship that the Filipino people hold for Americans. General MacArthur coming ashore in Leyte was not that long ago in people’s memories. You don’t get the emotion from history books. It hit Councilperson Angel Pilago very hard. We all felt it.

Toward the end of the evening, Nitta Pilago corralled all of us for a photo with Admiral Swift. So there we all were around the admiral, doing our best shaka picture. Shameless.

Dutch Kuyper was very much at ease with the senior staff.  Mayor Kenoi found out that he and the Admiral’s wife had both gone to school on the East Coast and so were like classmates. This set the tone for the rest of our trip. Our delegation knew that this was going to be a very special, rewarding, aloha kind of trip.

Geothermal, Peak Oil, Philippines

Dispatch from the Philippines: Visited a Geothermal Production Site

I’m still in Ormoc City. We visited the Energy Development Corporation (EDC) geothermal production site the other day. It generates 700 MW in the Ormoc City area. Its five projects range from 50 to 230 MW in this area, and they have other geothermal projects in other areas.

This is a company that knows what it’s doing. They have expertise in steam field geothermal, the kind that would be most applicable in Hawai‘i.

We toured the Tongonan field, which has a plant capacity of 112 MW. It consists of 17 production wells and 7 reinjection wells. Its source is a volcano that last erupted 100,000 years ago.

EDC is impressive because of its years of experience and because of the social and environmental component of its business philosophy. At EDC, they have been doing this as a part of their business model for many years. They work with the surrounding communities in many areas of mutual benefit – from tax credits, to schooling, reforestation, etc. Each of the plants has a nurse on station. They are very safety conscious.

However, I must note Hawai‘i’s standards for hydrogen sulfide emissions are much more stringent than either the Philippines or the Icelandic operations’.

Puhagan geothermal plant

Palinpinon Geothermal power plant in Sitio Nasulo, Brgy. Puhagan, Valencia, Negros Oriental. Photo by Mike Gonzalez (TheCoffee). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. 

The Philippines, which lies alongside the Pacific Ring of Fire, is the second largest geothermal producer in the world. They are actively developing more geothermal there than the 1,400 MW that exists today. Using this stable, low-cost and proven technology resource will pay enormous dividends to its society in the future.

It is clear to see that as the price of oil rises, and they bring more geothermal on line, individual Filipinos will start to see their standard of living rise. If we in Hawai‘i took similar bold steps, our standard of living could also rise.

Philippines, Sustainability, Travel

Dispatch from the Philippines: We Can Learn a Lot from This Place

We left Cebu yesterday via Supercat (that’s a high-speed catamaran). Crossed the water and traveled along the east side of Leyte Island.

The island is like Hawai‘i, with highlands in the middle. It seemed like there were cinder cones all over its surface. Due to its lack of erosion, Leyte looks relatively younger geologically than O‘ahu.

There was a huge welcoming ceremony. Beauty queens, band, dancers, dignitaries and a police escort. Each of us received an Ormoc City medallion to wear around our necks. Serious stuff.

After dropping off our bags, we went to Visayas State University (VSU). Our delegation met with the President of the University and had a briefing, where it was apparent that there are so many things we have in common. I loved the atmosphere and “can-do” attitude.

Big Island Mayor Billy Kenoi set the big picture – the Aloha connection. This relationship is a long-term one of friendship.

Dr. Bruce Matthews, Interim Dean of the UH Hilo College of Ag, delivered UH Hilo Chancellor Donald Straney’s message of wanting to set up a student exchange program, and they are trying to achieve a Memo of Understanding on that before we leave. Their “cut through the red tape” attitude was most impressive to me.

VSU is a high-tech learning and research center that is building on what works locally, and then improving on it. For example, carabao – water buffalo – are utilized throughout the islands. But the university is improving the native carabao line by bringing in stock that grows faster in relation to a given time and food supply.

Also, carabao milk is thick, and not as appetizing as cow milk, but by diluting it by 50 percent with water, you end up with the nutrition equivalent of cow’s milk. Hmmm! We sampled carabao yogurt and it was wonderful. And it grows best on Hilo grass. Hilo grass? That is what survives overgrazing and mowing on the Big Island. And it goes on and on.

Third World? We can learn a lot about sustainability from this place. Mayor Billy sets the right tone for a long lasting and mutually beneficial partnership.

Geothermal, Peak Oil, Philippines, Renewable Energy Sources

Dispatch from the Philippines: Why We’re Here

I’m in Ormoc City, Philippines right now. I wrote before about Ormoc City:

…which has an economy similar to the Big Island’s. Its population is close to the population of the Big Island. They produce 700MW of geothermal, which they share by cable with other islands. We only produce 30MW.

The mayor wants to see how they do it. Since “if they can do it, we can do it.”  Read the rest here

 

Ormoc City and the Big Island are now “Sister Cities,” and it’s fascinating to talk with the folks that were instrumental in developing that Sister City relationship.

Ormoc CityIt started when Council Person Angel Pilago, his wife Nitta, and Jane Clement met at Lito Ilagan’s house in Kona to discuss the possibility of forming a Sister City relationship between the Big Island and a city in the Philippines.

From that small get-together, the idea took off. They explored several criteria of compatibility and found several prime candidates.

As the idea started moving forward, Council Person Brittany Smart asked if it was possible to focus on renewable energy. Lito and Jane did some research and came up with Ormoc City as a candidate. Jane checked its website and called the Mayor of Ormoc City, who picked up the phone. She explained the idea, and the Ormoc City Mayor was interested.

With the Visayan Club of Kona sponsoring them, Lito and Jane asked Hawai‘i County Mayor Billy Kenoi for his support in pursuing this initiative. Mayor Kenoi thought it was a good idea, and that it would be great to have it highlighted at the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo (APCESE).

There were various Sister City proposals coming in from the other counties. But due to the hard work of Angel and Nitta Pilago, Lito Ilagan, Jane Clement and the Kona people, this event was the one chosen to be featured at APCESE.

I was there, at the APCESE conference last year, to witness the signing ceremony for the new Sister City affiliation. Randy Kurohara arranged for a group of us meet with some high-level people from the Ormoc City geothermal generating operations. Their safety and dependability record seemed to be very good.

But we needed to see for ourselves.

So the Mayor put together this delegation to do an obligatory reciprocal ceremony and study tour of Ormoc City. Of special interest to me was the fact that Bruce Matthews, Dean of the College of Agriculture of UH Hilo, had been to the Visayas State University and knew about the school’s ag program. He mentioned to me how similar the soils in and around Ormoc City are to the soils of Hamakua.

And, of course, we are here to learn everything we can about how Ormoc City lives with and benefits from geothermal. For a $30,000 investment in this trip to the Phillipines, the county of Hawai‘i is getting great bang for its buck.

Stay tuned for more Dispatches from the Philippines coming soon.

Hawaiian Role Models

Surfboards For Skibs & His Aloha Spirit

Richard Ha writes:

Yesterday I received an email. The East Hawai‘i Cultural Center was looking for Bradda Skibs, because someone had donated 10 surfboards for his program. 

I know Skibs and I wrote about his great "malama ka ‘aina" program before.

I said that what Brudda Skibs is doing is "a manifestation of 'aloha spirit.'"

"This is what is going to keep us together as a society when push comes to shove," he says. "We need to feel a part of our community, make more friends and stay close to our family."

“What we’re doing is real,” says Skibs. “We could change this island. We’re doing it already. That’s our job right now – the future of our children."

Skibs and I are both great-great-great grandsons of Kamahele Nui of Puna.

Big Island, Hamakua Coast, Peak Oil, Sustainability

Sustainability in Hamakua

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My worlds collided on Saturday, when I led a tour that included a stop to meet Richard and see Hamakua Springs Country Farms.

Along with Hilo historian and anthropologist Judith Kirkendall, I lead van tours around East Hawai‘i. Right now we are doing a series of five tours that focus on agriculture and sustainability – what people are doing right now to be more sustainable, and how we can support them and also be more sustainable ourselves. The tours operate through Lyman Museum.

Our tour this past Saturday was called “The Garden As Provider,” and we focused on Hamakua. First we met at the Lyman Museum and heard a short talk by Sam Robinson about Let’s Grow Hilo. That’s the program she started that has volunteers planting edibles along downtown Hilo streets and in traffic medians.

“Anyone is free to help themselves to the fruit or vegetables once it’s ripe,” she told us, and she invited anyone interested in the project to come help plant and tend. They meet every last Sunday at the East Hawai‘i Cultural Center at 2 p.m.

Then we visited Barbara and Philip Williams, who live just outside Hilo near Pueopaku. Barbara grew up in Kenya, where they lived 50 miles away from the nearest railroad and so had to be self-sufficient. After she and Philip married, they lived on a plantation in East Africa. Now on the Big Island, they still grow and harvest everything they can. They have animals, including goats, and every fruit and vegetable you can imagine. “We retain the habits of being self-sufficient to the present day,” she told us.

From there we headed to Pepe‘ekeo, where Richard met us at Hamakua Springs.

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Richard is such an interesting speaker. He told us the story of how he started in farming (after flunking out of UH and consequently serving in Vietnam, he returned home and helped his father on the family’s chicken farm; then traded chicken manure for banana keiki and started farming bananas). He talked about how they decided to move the farm to Pepe‘ekeo and why (hint: free water; the farm alone has one-third as much water as supports agriculture where 234,000 people live in Leeward O‘ahu). Our tour group was totally engaged.

He told about how he started noticing prices going up (on fertilizer, boxes, all the things they were using on the farm) and how he realized it was due to oil prices and decided to attend Peak Oil conferences to learn what was happening. And how he felt bad and so didn’t tell the others there that he would return to Hawai‘i and wear shorts throughout the winter, and grow his produce throughout the winter; nor how we have geothermal to provide us with energy – which we don’t even fully take advantage of.

He spoke about how he has been positioning themselves for how conditions will be five or 10 years from now, and about the hydroelectric project that is getting going on the farm very shortly, and how since his workers first asked to borrow money for gas to get to work he has started what they call the Family of Farms, working with nearby farmers. And about how they are experimenting with how they can produce protein on the farm by raising tilapia, and giving their workers fish (and produce) every week in lieu of monetary raises they cannot afford to give right now.

There was more, and as editor of this blog for all these years, none of it was new to me, but I, too, listened intently and enjoyed it thoroughly. It was fascinating to hear Richard pull all the pieces he talks about on this blog together into one, interrelated, narrative that tells such a real, on-the-ground story of how things are (and how they are changing). The people on the tour were really interested. We all were. Afterward, I heard people talking about what a great thinker he is, and how much they enjoyed meeting him.

That Richard, he’s all right!

We also went to Hi‘ilani Eco House in Honoka‘a, an amazing house being constructed to be as “green” as it gets. Wow, that’s a fascinating place (they say it should last for 500 years!) and they are very open to groups visiting, if anyone is interested. And we stopped a couple other places as well.

It was a neat day (the upcoming tours are listed here if you’re interested), and Richard’s information really made it so good. We were all wowed. Thanks, Richard!

Government, Peak Oil

The White House’s ‘Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future: One-Year Progress Report’

If your electric bill is $300 today, with the price of oil going up 13.5 percent a year (as it has for the last 10 years) your electric bill will be $600/month by mid-2017. And by 2023, it will be about $1,200/month.

This is largely due to demand from China and India. If the trend continues, the price of oil will double every 5.5 years.

It is clear that the U.S. mainland has many resources we in Hawai‘i do not. We don’t have nuclear, large hydro, natural gas or coal. Also, the U.S. mainland only relies on oil for 2 percent of its electricity generation.

The mainland mainly has a liquid fuel transportation problem because there isn’t an easy solution for gasoline. But they are in much better shape than we in Hawai‘i because they don’t also have a liquid fuel electricity problem.

In Hawai‘i, we have both a liquid fuel transportation problem and a liquid fuel electric generation problem. The cost of both is rising with oil prices.

Except for a few spikes in the ’70s and ’80s, oil prices have been under $20 per barrel for 100 years. In 2000, the oil price was $25 per barrel and with normal inflation, the price should be $35 per barrel today. Instead, it is over $105 per barrel. Supply cannot keep up with demand.

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 12, 2012
 
The Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future: One-Year Progress Report
One year ago, the President put forward a comprehensive plan in the Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future that outlined the Administration’s all-of-the-above approach to American energy – a strategy aimed at reducing our reliance on foreign oil, saving families and businesses money at the pump, and positioning the United States as the global leader in clean energy.
On Monday, the President will receive a new progress report, showcasing the Administration’s historic achievements in each of these areas. The accomplishments in this report, which represent the efforts of six Federal agencies, underscore the Administration’s commitment over the past three years to promoting an all-hands-on-deck, all-of-the-above approach to American energy and building a more secure energy future. Attached please find a copy of The Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future: One-Year Progress Report.
 
Report Highlights:
·         Increasing American Energy Independence: A year ago, the President set a bold but achievable goal of reducing oil imports by a third in a little over a decade, relative to where they were when he ran for office. Thanks to booming U.S. oil and gas production, more efficient cars and trucks, and a world-class refining sector that last year was a net exporter for the first time in sixty years, we have already cut net imports by ten percent – or a million barrels a day – in the last year alone. And with the new fuel economy standards the President announced last year, we are on pace to meet our goal by the end of the decade.
·         Expanding Domestic Oil and Gas Production: Domestic oil and natural gas production has increased every year President Obama has been in office. In 2011, American oil production reached the highest level in nearly a decade and natural gas production reached an all-time high.
·         Setting Historic New Fuel Economy Standards: The Obama Administration has put in place the first-ever fuel economy standards for heavy-duty trucks, and proposed the toughest fuel economy standards for passenger vehicles in U.S. history, requiring an average performance equivalent of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. Over time, these new standards will save consumers more than $8,000 in lower fuel costs.
·         Improving Energy Efficiency in 1 Million Homes: Since October 2009, the Department of Energy and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have completed energy upgrades in more than one million homes across the country. For many families, these upgrades save over $400 on their heating and cooling bills in the first year alone.
·         Doubling Renewable Energy Generation: Thanks in part to the Obama Administration’s investment in clean energy – the largest in American history – the United States has nearly doubled renewable energy generation from wind, solar, and geothermal sources since 2008.
·         Developing Advanced, Alternative Fuels: In 2010, President Obama set a goal of breaking ground on at least four commercial scale cellulosic or advanced biorefineries by 2013. That goal has been accomplished, one year ahead of schedule. Together, these projects, and associated demonstration and pilot projects will produce a combined total of nearly 100 million gallons per year of advanced biofuels capacity.
·         Supporting Cutting-Edge Research: The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), which the Obama Administration funded for the first-time ever in 2009, has supported more than 120 individual projects aimed at achieving new and transformational energy breakthroughs.
Even with this progress, there is much more work to be done. Today, we are experiencing yet another painful reminder of why developing new American energy is so critical to our future. Just like last year, gas prices are climbing across the country – except this time, even earlier. While there are no silver bullets to solve these challenges, the Obama Administration will continue to build on the progress we’ve made over the past three years. Through a sustained, all-of-the-above approach to American energy we’ll work to restore middle class security, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and create an economy that’s built to last.