Losing Weight

The Five Pound Challenge, Week 1

It’s one week into our Five Pound Challenge and we’re reporting in.

Richard:

I lost 1.5 pounds this past week.

I’m bringing myself to the point where I can do a combination of weight lifting and walking for 45 minutes everyday. Jimmy told me to work out in the mornings if possible. He said that your body is in a fat-burning mode when you first get up and you want to keep this going into the day as long as possible. He suggested I work another 40 minutes of activity into my day. I pretty much get that by working around the greenhouses. Lately, I’ve been looking at my bicycle.

Leslie:

I lost 1 pound this week.

This week wasn’t a typical one for me — I spent the week in Honolulu, out of my normal routine. I haven’t even gotten around to dusting off the elliptical trainer yet, though, as Richard said about his bike, I’ve been looking at it. I think I lost that pound by running around more than usual and not snacking as much. Gotta add exercising to the mix and see what happens.

Renewable Energy Sources

Peak Oil Anxiety

Prior to this past year, the International Energy Association (IEA), which represents the developed countries outside of OPEC, took a very conservative approach to reporting on the world oil supply situation.

A few months ago, it finally woke up. Now Dr. Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist, is saying that all is not fine. Although he is trying to stay cool, I can feel the anxiety in his speeches. He is talking about “10 years to Peak Oil.”

Many, many observers think we have already passed Peak Oil, including me.

This article, Proof Positive Peak Oil Is Here, talks about the factors at work.

by Bill Powers,
 Editor, Powers Energy Investor, 
July 31, 2009

Peak oil would be irrelevant if not for our continued and extreme thirst for it. Dr. Colin Campbell, petroleum geologist, is credited with quantifying that we find one barrel of oil for every four we consume and that the discovery of new oil reserves peaked in the 1960’s (The World Oil Supply). Published in 1995, Dr. Campbell’s work could not have anticipated the expanding consumption required to catapult the economies in developing China or India. Nor did it contemplate our current worldwide economic slowdown.

What Dr. Campbell’s work does shed light on is this: we are on an oil usage treadmill that is unsustainable. In 2008, while the world did consume .6% less oil than it did in 2007, it consumed 21% more than it did in 1995 when Dr. Campbell’s research was released (Source: BP.com historical statistic review from governmental and public sources). In light of this information, the importance of peaking worldwide oil production is difficult to overstate. Despite all the rhetoric with respect to alternative energy sources, oil literally makes the world go around and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future…. (Read the whole article here)

Yesterday the UK newspaper the Independent published an article titled Warning: Oil supplies are running out fast.   It is based on an interview with Fatih Birol, Chief Economist of the International Energy Association.

Catastrophic shortfalls threaten economic recovery, says world’s top energy economist
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Monday, 3 August 2009

“One day we will run out of oil, it is not today or tomorrow, but one day we will run out of oil and we have to leave oil before oil leaves us, and we have to prepare ourselves for that day,” Dr Birol said. “The earlier we start, the better, because all of our economic and social system is based on oil, so to change from that will take a lot of time and a lot of money and we should take this issue very seriously,” he said.

“The market power of the very few oil-producing countries, mainly in the Middle East, will increase very quickly. They already have about 40 per cent share of the oil market and this will increase much more strongly in the future,” he said.

There is now a real risk of a crunch in the oil supply after next year when demand picks up because not enough is being done to build up new supplies of oil to compensate for the rapid decline in existing fields…. (Read the whole article here)

We need to move determinedly toward geothermal energy here on the Big Island. We cannot be talking about 10 years from now. World oil supplies soon will not keep up with demand, so we need to move and move fast. This is not business as usual!

History, Maku‘u Stories

Part 1: My Kamahele Family in Maku‘u

1 Comment

Today I was thinking about my Kamahele family and especially my grandmother Leihulu’s brother, Ulrich Kamahele.

Everybody knew him as Uncle Sonny, as if there was only one “Uncle Sonny” in all of Hawai‘i. He was a larger-than-life character. In a crowd, he dominated by the sheer force of his personality. Since I have been thinking about him, I thought I would write a several-part story about Maku‘u.

My extended Kamahele family came from Maku‘u. When we were small kids, Pop took  us in his ‘51 Chevy to visit.

He turned left just past the heart of Pahoa town, where the barbershop is today. We drove down that road until he hit the railroad tracks, and then turned left on the old railroad grade back toward Hilo. A few miles down the railroad grading was the old Maku‘u station. It was an old wooden shack with bench seats, as I recall. That is where the train stopped in the old days. A road wound around the pahoehoe lava flow all the way down the beach to Maku‘u. That was before there were the Paradise Park or Hawaiian Beaches subdivisions.

We did not know there was a district called Maku‘u; we thought the family compound was named Maku‘u. Of the 20-acre property, maybe 10 acres consisted of a kipuka where the soil was ten feet deep. The 10 acres on the Hilo side were typical pahoehoe lava. The property had a long oceanfront with a coconut grove running the length of the oceanfront. It was maybe 30 trees deep and 50 feet tall.

The old-style, two-story house sat on the edge of a slope just behind the coconut grove. If I recall correctly, it had a red roof and green walls. Instead of concrete blocks as supports for the posts, they used big rocks from down the beach.

There was no telephone, no electricity and no running water. So when we arrived it was a special occasion. We kids never, ever got as welcome a reception as we got whenever we went to Maku‘u.

Tutu Lady

The person who was always happiest to see us small kids was tutu lady Meleana, my grandma Leihulu’s mom. She was a tiny, gentle woman, maybe 100 pounds, but very much the matriarch of the family. She spoke very little English but it was never an issue. We communicated just fine.

We could not wait to go down the beach. Once she took us kids to catch ‘ohua—baby manini. She used a net with coconut leaves as handles that she used to herd the fish into the net. I don’t recall how she dried it, but I remember how we used to stick our hands in a jar to eat one at a time. They were good.

She would get a few ‘opihi and a few haukeuke and we spent a lot of time poking around looking at this sea creature and that.

Between the ocean in the front and the taro patch, ulu trees, bananas and pig pen in the back, there was no problem about food. I know how Hawaiians could be self-sufficient because I saw it in action.

The house was full of rolls of stripped lauhala leaves. There were several lauhala trees and one was a variegated type. I don’t recall if they used it  for lauhala mats but it dominated the road to the house.

There were lauhala mats all over the place, four and five thick. There was a redwood water tank, and a Bull Durham bag hung on the kitchen water pipe as a filter.

Years later when I showed interest in playing slack key, I was given Tutu’s old Martin guitar.

She had played it so often that the bottom frets had indentations in it where her fingers went.

Next:
Maku’u Stories, Part 2: Cousin Frank Kamahele

Sustainability

HELCO’s Tariff About Moving Electricity Across TMKs

Wheeling of Electricity:

1) Wheeling “is the movement of electricity, owned by a power supplier and sold to a retail consumer, over transmission and distribution lines owned by neither one.” A fee is charged by the owners of the lines for letting others use them. (www.cepc.net/rewhl.htm)

2) Wheeling is defined as ”the process of transmitting electric power from a seller’s point of generation across a third-party-owned transmission and distribution system to the seller’s retail customer.” (Hawaii PUC)

Last week I learned that HELCO’s tariff does not allow the transmission of electricity across TMKs, even if it is entirely through property a person owns.

I cannot imagine how this could be illegal. There must be some mistake.

This could mean the end of our hydro-electric project, as well as our integrated community-based agriculture plan. We had planned to put in a hydro-electric turbine on one property we owned, then run a electric line through a neighboring property we owned to our packing house, which is on a third property we own.

We have a large cooler there that we are not using. Using hydroelectricity, we wanted to help area farmers consolidate and ship products to O‘ahu, thereby sharing transportation costs while maintaining freshness and quality.

We are actively pursing a Hawaiian sustainability project, where we would use the water from a new spring we just discovered for taro growing. The vision is to use this as an educational opportunity. We planned to use the hydro-electricity to power a processing plant where we would make poi and do value added processing for ourselves and participating area farmers.

Students who were interested could lease land from us for taro growing or other types of farming. One of the bottlenecks to food security is that there are places for students to learn about farming but limited opportunities to actually get into farming. We would like to help fix that problem.

With cheap electricity, we could even cold treat plants to force flowering during the winter. The possibilities are endless. Because it is difficult to raise our workers’ pay, we had planned to set up charging stations for our workers to charge up their electric/hybrid cars.

Being able to transport electricity through adjacent, commonly owned properties is very important for Hawai‘i’s food security effort. I would even advocate for farmers to use renewable energy Kilowatt hour credits on non-contiguous sites, such as at farmers markets or at value added processing plants. For most farmers, 100KW is way large enough. At full usage it would not even approach one half of 1 percent of the total electricity used. Yet, it would make a major impact on food security. Looks like we have the tail wagging the dog here.

Health, Losing Weight

The Five Pound Challenge, Day 1

Okay, I did tell Leslie that I was thinking about working out again. About a month ago I started thinking seriously about making a lifestyle change after the TMT decision. So I called up Jimmy yesterday, my friend who told me he would work with me if I wanted to work out. Jimmy knows everything about cardio training and nutrition. He said, put on your walking shoes and come down to the house.

During a 40-minute walk we discussed philosophy, motivation, strategy, nutrition, aerobic cardioovascular pathways, protein synthesis, bmi index, VO2 max, lactic acid, fat burning, liver, adrenal gland, antioxidants, juicers, etc. I understand all those terms.

Then he came to my house to check out my setup and he wrote me a 40-minute program.  I has to demonstrate that I understood the movements and got 20 more minutes of work out in. Then we went out back and went over everything for another 30 minutes.

Jimmy’s advice: Slow food and slow progress. He said to measure inches not pounds; the idea is that you don’t want to set yourself up for disappointment. I’ll check my weight once per week to see how I am doing against Leslie. But I’m settling in for the long haul.

Today I’ll go with him to GNC to see what I will be using in smoothies.

Leslie:

I don’t enjoy exercising. Never have, never will. Also, my life is really busy right now and I don’t have any obvious time available for such a thing. But about five unwanted pounds have crept on, and I’d like to lose them, so somehow I’ll find the time. I know that exercise will be good for me for myriad other reasons, too.

I have an elliptical trainer, and my plan is to put on a movie and watch it while I make myself climb up on it and use it. I know I’ll never do it unless there’s something to look forward to while doing it. I love this idea and hope it works nicely.

As for food, I’m going to pay attention to what I’m eating — three reasonable meals a day and two small snacks in between. My biggest personal challenge: not eating after dinner. I work in my home office late and eat late. Bad, bad. It’s gotta go.

I’m glad to read that Richard is going for slow progress, both because that’s a healthy approach and also because that gives me a better chance to win the challenge! (I told you I’m sort of competitive.)

Health, Losing Weight

The Five Pound Challenge

3 Comments

If you’ve been reading along recently, you know we’ve been discussing the TMT quite a bit.

Now for something completely different.

So Richard mentioned to me the other day that he was thinking about starting to work out again.

Richard and I are polar opposites on this subject. He likes to lift weights, knows what his resting heart rate is, and has used phrases here on the blog like “power lifting,” “cardiovascular workout,” “reps” and “crunches.”

I have never, ever used any of those phrases. I am not an exercise junkie by any stretch of the imagination.

I have been thin, I think, mostly because I was lucky in my genes. Now I guess I’m getting older, though, because suddenly my body would like to be about five pounds heavier than it has been. I would like to lose those pounds before they settle in for the long haul.

So when Richard mentioned in passing he wanted to lose some weight and might start working out again, I blurted out, “Let’s see who can lose five pounds first! I CHALLENGE YOU. We can write about it on the blog!”

He immediately accepted my challenge. And then I instantly regretted my impulsiveness, because I’m lazy about stuff like this and now I will have to do it.

And now, of course, I will absolutely have to lose these five pounds, because we are going to keep track of our progress here on the blog and I don’t want to be publicly humiliated. And possibly I might even need to lose my five pounds first, because I am competitive. Oh my.

We will do our official weigh-ins on Monday. Stay tuned.

And you can accept the challenge along with us if you’d like, by letting us know in comments (or just privately inside your head). If you want to accept the challenge publicly, by letting us know here in comments at the end of this post, then you can post your updates in comments when we do, and we will all cheer each other on.

See you Monday.

Mauna Kea

TMT Selects Mauna Kea, Promises Big Island $50 Million For Education

2 Comments

After deliberating for two days, the Thirty Meter Telescope Observatory Corp. board voted yesterday to site its new telescope here on Mauna Kea, not in Chile.

Although I’ve been working on this project for almost three years now, I was not prepared for the emotional rush that came when Henry Yang, president of the TMT, called to tell me of the decision.

All I could think about was how this would help our people launch their kids into the middle class. All that most of us want is for our kids to do a little better than we did.

The median family income in Hawai‘i is around $56,000. Here on the Big Island, it is $46,000. But on the east side of the Big Island, the median family income is in the mid-$30,000s. And in some communities it is in the low-$30,000s.

We all know that low family income is sometimes associated with social problems. And Hawaiian families occupy the lowest rungs on the family income ladder.

Education is directly related to family income. The more education, the higher the family income. Education is the great equalizer.

The Thirty Meter Telescope folks have pledged $1 million dollars annually for 50 years, which will be administered by carefully selected community members, primarily for K-12 education.

We all know that many of our students who enter college fail, or lower their aspirations, because they are not prepared to succeed. We want this TMT fund to prepare students to succeed.

So if we are truly interested in elevating our people and taking them away from drug problems, abusive relationships and other social ills, then we must help parents to launch their kids into the middle class. For those who are prepared to succeed, the sky is the limit.

My pop influenced me at an early age. When I was 10 years old, he inspired me with the attitude of “Not, no can. CAN!”  So I know the value of influencing elementary school kids. They are very impressionable, and with the right environment and the right teachers, anything is possible.

This is why we created the Adopt-A-Class project. Sometimes the Keaukaha School kids come to our farm on their excursions. I tell them stories and give examples of how a positive attitude can overcome any problem. And at the end of the tour when I yell out “Not, no can!” they all yell back: “CAN!”  Right on!

I see the annual $1 million Education Fund as a way of opening up kids’ minds and making them understand that they can do anything. We do not want our kids to wallow in victim-ism. That is waste time.

What we need is for them to have an optimism and a pride that our people were astronomers and the best navigators in the world. We want all kids, not just Hawaiians, to feel that high aspirations and goals are normal and not out of the ordinary.

The TMT leadership—Henry Yang and Jean Lou Chameau—listened to our advice very early on. They went and talked to community folks, like Kumu Lehua and Patrick Kahawaiola‘a, and they understood that the common denominator on which people on all sides of the issue could agree was the education of our keiki.

We have our eye on a goal, and so yesterday’s announcement that the TMT Board has decided on Mauna Kea for its new telescope is a huge, huge deal.

Mauna Kea

Today is the Day: The Thirty Meter Telescope Site Decision

2 Comments

RToday is the big day – The Thirty Meter Telescope Corporation’s board is meeting to decide where to site the TMT.

Will it be in Chile?

Or will it be in Hawai‘i?

We’ll have to wait and see.

We’ve come such a long way. It was three years ago when we first heard the TMT folks were interested in siting their telescope on Mauna Kea. Back then, the community was torn apart over astronomy and control issues.

Together with Roberta Chu and Bob Saunders, I volunteered to sit on the newly formed TMT committee of the Hawai‘i Island Economic Development Board. I was determined that if a new telescope was to be sited on Mauna Kea, it needed to be done right.

To me, “done right” meant doing things local style. And local style is all about building relationships. One must go talk story, again and again, until a certain level of trust is built. This takes time.

Spending time is an essential part of trust building. One cannot avoid spending the time.

Fortunately, Henry Yang, President of the TMT Corporation and Chancellor of U.C. Santa Barbara, and Jean Lou Chameau, President of Cal Tech and one of the TMT Corporation partners, both understood the importance of relationship building. They took the time to meet and get to know the people. They did this for its own sake.

If we are successful and the TMT is sited on Mauna Kea, it will be because of the foundation that was laid in the first few meetings. From there, we all just went out and built relationships.

A little at a time, in wider and wider concentric circles, people started talking to others and common ground was found. Groups started talking to groups – labor unions, business organizations, astronomy folks, university and community college folks, as well as many other groups and organizations that joined this coalition, which had as its purpose, the common good.

One of the most important things we learned from the Hawaiian community was that the process is the most important thing. Follow the process. Following the process meant that all participants in the process made for a better end product.

And, following that logic, we acknowledge and appreciate the contribution of all involved. So the process made all of us contributors to the end product. It was not “us against them.” It was just us. All of us!

We also need to aloha the early, loud voices for bringing up issues that needed to be addressed.

This is what I envisioned when I said that if the TMT comes here, it needs to be done right.

It also means that if the TMT selects Mauna Kea tomorrow, our work is not done. We must make sure that the four sub plans for the CMP are done right. We need to continue working hard to protect the rights of all the parties.

No matter whether Mauna Kea is selected or not, we did this right and we will have no regrets.

Aloha, mahalo and congratulations to all.

Education, Hawaiian Role Models, Mauna Kea

Akamai Observatory Internship Program

1 Comment

Richard recently spoke to 16 students in the Hawai‘i Island Akamai Observatory Internship program.

Image001

It’s an eight-week, paid summer internship funded mostly by the Center for Adaptive Optics (out of the University of California at Santa Cruz), though this year the Thirty Meter Telescope also contributed financially to the program by covering a budget shortfall.

Sarah Anderson is the program’s on-island coordinator and she explains the program’s three goals.

“One is to open pathways into astronomy, engineering and technology careers for local students. The second goal is the development of a work force for astronomy and technology, and the third is to continue to develop collaboration among the observatories themselves.”

The program starts with a weeklong preparatory course, and then there’s a seven-week internship at one of the Mauna Kea observatories. “They work on a single project under a mentor or mentor team for the seven weeks,” says Anderson. “And at the end of the seven weeks, they do an oral presentation at our symposium.”

Sarah says that during the first week’s “short course,” the goal is to prepare the students for their internship. “We do a bunch of science activities,” she says. “Hands-on, inquiry-based activities that are designed to help the students think on their own and develop their critical thinking, and their ability to start and get through projects.

“In addition, we try to get them thinking about their place in society as scientists, engineers and technicians,” she says.

“We asked Richard to come in to talk about business, sustainability and astronomy. They were very interested.”

Richard akamaiphoto by Sarah Anderson

Most of the interns either attend college at the University of Hawai‘i or one of Hawai‘i’s community colleges; four are local kids attending college on the mainland. Three are Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students.

Richard says it made him think of Paul Coleman, the first native Hawaiian astrophysicist, who now worked for the Institute for Astronomy. “He was really lucky,” says Richard. “When he was following his dream to study astronomy, there were no opportunities here and no programs available like this Akamai program. He had to leave Hawai‘i and he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to get back home. It was only because of a really unusual set of circumstances that he was able to find his way back to work in Hawai‘i in astronomy.

“I remembered Paul telling his story to the OHA board, and here were these students going through a program that did not exist for Paul when he was starting out. I looked at those kids teaming up with mentors and it just kind of took my breath away.”