Big Island *takes first step* in banning GMO's

[steve1]

Sorry Richard. If you think exploiting geothermal resources on Big Island is going to lower electric bills for the "rubbah slippah" folks then I have a bridge you should probably buy. Just who is going to lower those rates? Helco? With the highest electric rates in the nation they just keep wanting more. Free energy to them does not necessarily mean lower rates for real people.
The current geothermal project pays subsidies to our county government and the past two Puna councilors have frittered that money away on pet projects like a paved road to freddie blas' house.
If you want free energy what about wind farms? Oh right, you don't like them because they spoil the view from your home in Hamakua. See the problem is that nobody wants a power generating plant in their backyard because all of them have some sort of downside so everyone likes to build ugly and potentially hazardous projects in poor neighborhoods.

As far as the GMO debate goes: creatures on this planet have co-evolved so that basically every living being is a potential food source for other living beings. Perfect recycling. Some genetic splicing is truly done for the betterment of the crop by enhancing disease resistance for instance. But unfortunately most research is backed by people who want to make a profit and some are extremely greedy. Lets say we could splice the gene that makes nicotine into other plants because that poison ewill repel and possibly kill preditors. Then lets say some greedy person splices it into lettuce so they can sell lettuce cigarettes to kids. Problem is that the industry is mostly unregulated and it would take years for government to respond. And what if some genius were to splice gluten protein manufacturing genes into corn and rice so you could make nice breads out of them. See any problem? Like maybe all the gluten intolerant people would have a problem with the food supply being contaminated with what for them is poison?
In the past I worked with a microbiologist who found out that someone had inserted a gene for manufacturing alcohol into a common soil-borne bacterium. Someone was looking for a cheap way to manufacture ethyl alcohol but she realized the implication of potential problems if (when) it escaped into the wild. See, most plants can't handle alcohol and there was real potential to decimate all plant life if this were to be released into the wild and fortunately she was able to convince the scientist to stop the project, because there was no government oversight to step in and stop something terrible from happening.
Aloha to you sir.

[Richard Ha]

Aloha Steve
It's not that complicated. Electricity costs around 40 cents kWh on the Big Island. It costs approx 20 cents kWh to run the Big Island grid. It costs around 20 cents kWh to generate electricity from oil. It costs around 10 cents kWh to generate electricity from geothermal. Geothermal works 24/7 and the cost of the steam will not go up for 500,000 years.

The Big Island Community Coalition showed that people can make a difference. They were instrumental in HELCO withdrawing a $19 million rate hike. And, they opposed the
AKP Ka'u biofuel project because $200 per barrel was too much for rate payers to subsidize. People can make a difference.

Wind and solar is fine but it is not 24/7. So, you need to add the cost of storage. I opted for hydro power. We will throw the switch soon. It will take our farm entirely off the grid.
We plan to work with area farmers so we can all help each other Grow food.


Regarding GMO's; Darwin said, its not the strongest or the smartest that survive. It's the ones that can adapt. Let's not throw away options that help us adapt.

[kalakoa]

HELCO is a for-profit enterprise, not to be confused with a "public utility".

Grid power at the "fully-permitted residential rate" is roughly 42-43c/KWh.

A "temporary" connection pays something like $75/mo (for the privilege of being connected to The Grid) PLUS usage.

No matter which way you run the numbers, a small off-grid system will pay for itself within a few years, even as the naysayers insist that "it's expensive" and "maintenance is hard" and "storage is a big problem" ... but I'm saving $200-300/month for at least another 20 years.

Look, people: IT'S UP TO YOU, don't wait around for the government (or HELCO, or whomever) to come to your rescue -- they're not.

[Greg]

Check out THIS infographic about GMO labeling.

[Guest]

Finally it looks like a great debate. Both Steve and Richard have brought up many good points that seem very real, and factual on both sides. Thank you both. So maybe this area of Puna should be looked at better than just the poorest county in Hawaii with the rubba slippah folks?. See in the states there has been a boom for Indian casino's. On the first Monday of the month there is a line out the door of these casino's, of Indian residences who are there to collect there CHECKS. In Alaska at the end of every year all state residences of Alaska get a check of say $800- to sometimes $2,000. This is for the large oil pipeline And oil that comes from THERE state. If some of the things Ha say's are true? Then maybe it's time for the current geothermal plant to cough up a little towards say a new school for the future kieki. Maybe any future plant's who would like to tap into Puna's wealth of power should have built in community benefit packages?. Now in no way is any money going to replace the health impacts that may be caused from these plants. We can only hope to give people more information and more choices in the future about geothermal procedures and where these rubbah slippah folks want to live. Right now there are A lot of people who are basically stuck. They don't have enough money to sell out cheap and move where? The county promises to relocate or buy out folks within a mile of Geothermal yet with 30 home owners on this 8 year old list only 1 has been relocated. The current plant was probably built to close to subdivisions like lielani? The state and geothermal knew this 25 years ago and aloud this to happen. Well what's done is done, The future is what is so important now. Puna is sitting on a wealth of power or money depending on how you view oil or electricity. I believe the poor and broken people of puna should be taken care of as well as there future Kieki. Some day we should all be able to afford Tennis shoes and choices to walk away from here if we wish. Helco, Dlnr, Hawaiian affiliation's, geothermal, county, and state and governments should feel shame and be held accountable for past and future of Puna's People. I remember talking story one day with Alani down at the warm pond in Poihiki 30 year's ago.? We were first niebor's talking about the future of red road, The story was a nice golf course with swimming pools, baseball fields, Jobs, tourism, ect... What happened? some burial grounds were found we heard? So now we must Industrialize Poihiki with more geothermals, Gmo fields?. We now get a thousand people a weekend swimming in Kapoho with no place to go # 2 ( harry Kim's ). My kid's are forced off the cliff's to catch fish they can eat now. As you can see, it is hard to live and watch what the state is doing to our homelands. Alani is no longer with us but his legacy will be for ever. Alani once lived in that small house at the warm pond, And he wore rubbah slippah's. Just my 2 cents on this issue sorry for the length of negatives, I now have to take my kids to the same classrooms I went to 30 year's ago.

[Richard Ha]

Aloha Kalakoa. We are getting off the grid for the same reasons you did. And, other folks who can, will. But, there are lots of folks who are not as fortunate. These are folks I refer generally to as the rubbah slippah folks. For them, the grid is a necessity. And, if we can maintain the grid with a cheap stable source of power that is independent of oil, it will benefit the rubbah slippah folks as well as businesses. Less of our young people will feel the need to move to the mainland to find jobs.

The utility has share holders and is a for-profit monopoly. In return for its monopoly power, it is regulated by the PUC. It cannot just charge any price it wants to.

Do I think the PUC commissioners are crooks? Emphatically, NO! Do I think they are influenced because of personal gain? NO! Do, I agree with everything they say? NO! Do they have rate payer cost on their minds. YES!

So, I agree with Kalakoa. Do take care of yourself. But, if you have extra time, help us to help the rubbah slippah folks. That will help us all.

[punareader]

I have suggested that the safety of GE products is really what we should be concerned about. This safety should extend to 3 critical areas: is it safe for human consumption, is it safe for the environment, and is there potential for interactions that transcend a given profile of interaction to result in an enhanced action that could deal great harm to people and the planet. The answer to the first two can be found in the 2012 paper by Antoniou et al (see Opensource: GMO Myths and Truths) which includes references to support their contentions. What is scary about this information is that the studies they quote have been around in some cases longer than a decade yet have been ignored by profit motivated chemical companies and even watch dog agencies. The studies I list below are typical with respect to human safety with regards to Glyphosphate: it is apparent that we end up consuming this product and that it can affect development, cell regulation, reproductive organs, maternity and cytoxicity including the potential for increased cancer risk.

Antoniou et al list 588 studies in their recent paper demonstrating (1) there are many studies in the independent and scientific literature pertaining to the topic of safety and (2) even the re-analysis of some of the industry data has been shown have negative effects counter to what the industry originally claimed (which perhaps is why the bulk of industry data has not been released?!). Now that more recent and independent studies have finally started studying horizontal gene transfer between GE organisms and wild organisms, the evidence points to genetic transfers between organisms that are related, organisms that are not related, and organisms that might have some interaction with humans. (see report by Krinshna Ramanujan in the Cornell Chronicle 2.29.2012 on rare bacteria-to-animal gene transfer that gave an advantage to a coffee pest, Moran and Jarvic’s 2009 report in Science vol. 328, pp 624-627 on gene transfer from fungi to aphids, and Miranda’s 2009 report in Agronony for Sustainable Development vol. :pp 497-501 on corn transgenes found in soil dwelling arthropods, earthworms, and microarthropods). The resulting picture is one frightening to comprehend because once these genes are out in nature, they can not be recalled. What is emerging is that we should have been looking for long term effects rather than short term effects, and that the Corporations who have fausted this upon us should have been much more critical of their own investigations and open to releasing their data to others for confirmation or rejection.

The EPA, FDA and USDA who had responsibility for some of these industry-driven releases has now come under scrutiny by the government watchdog agency the GAO which finds they need to be more diligent and come up with better ways to test pre-release GE crops and monitor those that have been released. GAO has called for these agencies to improve their coordination and reporting with each other. There is a need to determine whether the spread of genetic traits is causing undesirable effects on the environment, non-GE segments of agriculture, or food safety, as recommended by the National Research Council and others. Thus poor oversight by governmental agencies is partly to blame for the six escapes into nature that are known (we have no idea of others which have not been caught-see GAO Highlights, GAO-09-60 report to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry).

It is my firm belief that we need to pass bills stopping advance of GE crops into our County and even the state until such time that we have a much better idea of the overall impacts of these crops on ourselves, our environment and our health.


Poulsen MS, Rytting E, Mose T, Knudsen LE. Modeling placental transport: Correlation of in vitro BeWo cell permeability and ex vivo human placental perfusion. Toxicol In Vitro. Oct 2009; 23: 1380–1386.
Marc J, Mulner-Lorillon O, Belle R. Glyphosate-based pesticides affect cell cycle regulation. Biol Cell. Apr 2004; 96(3): 245-249.
Romano RM, Romano MA, Bernardi MM, Furtado PV, Oliveira CA. Prepubertal exposure to commercial formulation of the herbicide Glyphosate alters testosterone levels and testicular morphology. Archives of Toxicology. 2010; 84(4): 309-317.
Arbuckle TE, Lin Z, Mery LS. An exploratory analysis of the effect of pesticide exposure on the risk of spontaneous abortion in an Ontario farm population. Environmental Health Perspectives. August 2001; 109: 851–857.
Rull RP, Ritz B, Shaw GM. Neural tube defects and maternal residential proximity to agricultural pesticide applications. .Epidemiology. July 2004; 15(4): S188.
Mesnage R, Clair E, Gress S, Then C, Székács A, Séralini G-E. Cytotoxicity on human cells of Cry1Ab and Cry1Ac Bt insecticidal toxins alone or with a glyphosate-based herbicide. Journal of Applied Toxicology. 15 Feb 2012.

[Richard Ha]

http://www.civilbeat.com/voices/2013/11/02/20290-the-lack-of-science-behind-hawaii-island-gmo-bill-113/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latest-contents+(Civil+Beat%3A+Latest+Articles%2C+Topic+Pages+and+Discussions)

Puna Reader, I am a farmer not a scientist. But, Susan Miyasaka is a scientist and she does not think bill 113 is scientifically valid.

From a lay person/farmer who has been to five peak oil conferences, i object to bill 113 because it prevents us from adapting to change. As Darwin said, its the ones that adapt that survive.

I think the consequences of $150 or even $125 per barrel oil is more worrisome than GMO's, Monsanto and Round Up all put together. In fact Hawaii has the longest and best quality of life for senior citizens in the whole country according to the CDC.

[peteadams]

There have been death threats to Kau'ai's Mayor Carvalho. This anti-GMO fervor is getting out of hand! The director of the Genetic Literacy Project visited Kau'ai to discuss the anti-GMO bill and reported back:

quote:

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Although some may believe that suggesting [witch trial and other] parallels with the fringe elements of the anti-GMO movement in Kaua’i is strained, I would push back. I faced a barrage of over-the-top anger when I visited the islands for a week in August in an attempt to engage islanders in rational, fact-based discussions about the issues. I saw no Aloha when it came to discussing GMOs—and all of the finger pointing and hysteria came from one side and one side only: those who believed, with religious-like fervor, that GMOs posed an imminent health and safety danger to them and their children. The scientific consensus clearly contradicts those hysterical claims, as heartfelt as they may be.

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http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/20...nmGHJGMy11

I truly hope that we on the Big Island are better than that.

[Rob Tucker]

Don't hold your breathe Pete. The anti vaccination crowd has found a new bogeyman.