Earth Day 2025

[TomK]

My post was 100% Hawaii in that it was 100% relevant to the conversation about regenerative agriculture featuring cows.

Nothing in your comment or quote said Hawaii.  “Relevant to the conversation” is not the criteria, it’s Puna or Hawaii related to the conversation. Otherwise almost everything goes and we’re off the farm.

Why confuse things? I'm not defending or attacking posts in this thread, but why not say "Hawaii related?" Hawaii includes Puna. You can always add that Puna-related threads are encouraged. So many people have complained in the past that a post isn't Puna-related, yet the rules say Hawaii-related posts are just fine. It would be good to develop a solid rule that clarifies what is or is not acceptable to everyone.

Thanks.

[Punatang]

Not Puna/Hawaii Related

Please help me navigate the seemingly arbitrary application of the rules.

I posted about a movie with two major Hawaii stars in it about agriculture which is sort of a thing in Puna.



Please help me be a better Punawebber going forward.

It’s really quite simple. Some people are more equal than others in Hawaii, in Puna, on PunaTalk, and on Earth Day. (See what I did there?)

Thus, your posts are seen, by the more equal folks, as hypercritical. So “where their only hope is to treat anyone unlike themselves with hostility and distain” your posts get treated with hostility and disdain regularly. It’s just an extension of the irony of some people being more equal than others. You aren’t more equal, and that might be a a point in your favor!

Good luck navigating, and you have been about as polite as possible in responding to those you treat you with a priori hostility and disdain. I think you are a fine and dandy PunaWebber, just not more equal.  I suspect there are a couple/few other Punawebbers, like myself, who have restricted themselves to mostly information threads and avoided posting in the threads dominated by ideological attackers, who might think so as well.

In any case, those who call you immature and naive, who question your intelligence and empathy at nearly every turn, and are just generally mean in response to anyone falling outside the hardened boundaries of their seamless ideological Truth, are not the totality of PunaWebbers. They are the most visible these days since I suspect fewer people bother calling them out on their hypercritical posts, following the moderators’ lead. They have a pass, you don’t. It’s just the price of admission, as Dan Savage likes to say in another context…

Who knows? (They do!)

Cheers,
Kirt

Thanks for that Kirt.  Who knew Bing Crosby would be so triggering?  As it turns out, your intelligent message was met with hostility and disdain.  This is the law of the instrument.  

On the bright side, we here in Puna have now been introduced to the sheer genius of Garrett Broad and Jan Dutkiewicz.  It has come to my attention that Puna people can feed ourselves with "democratic hedonism." There is no need for climate altering, methane producing ruminants in Puna unless you don't have a scythe or fertilizer.

[knieft]

Punatang:
“As it turns out, your intelligent message was met with hostility and disdain.  This is the law of the instrument“

Hmm, I didn’t see any hostility and disdain. Must be my EOE (early onset everything)…

If your referring to the pre-judgement of a phrase like “you don't give a fuck about others and their well-being then no one is obligated to give a fuck about you and yours” …that falls into the showing true colors category, more than disdain, to my eyes. I guess kinda hostile, maybe. Certainly attempts to damper any reasonable discussion about topics that reasonable people are capable of having. Doesn’t matter much to me. I don’t want to win anything. Just going on record, so to speak.

Cheers,
Kirt

[ironyak]

Sigh... pointed critique is not blind hostility, sharing an article critical of the claims of Hawaii residents Woody (who is also a vegan) & Momoa's movie is not hero worshiping the authors, ad hominem attacks aren't honest analysis, scientists that publish regenerative agriculture studies with The National Academy aren't wackos, goats & sheep are not the same as cows when choosing which is best for the climate to help maintain your Puna lot, and ignorance is not strength.

Somehow despite the claims of "true colors" being shown, there are many Punaweb posters who've never managed to attract any static. It's not because they are part of some "seamless ideological truth", it because they're not minimizing the suffering of their community, resorting to personal attacks, or posting BS and conspiracy theories that target their neighbors while noting all the great deals that will be available during their imminent demise. Somehow it's often the same small set of people that post brain-broken, divorced from all evidence nonsense that also have shown repeatedly their lack of care or concern about others. As such, it should come as no surprise why some here are calling for their economic, political, and even genomic ostracization.

Community is about getting what you give - if you want honest, informative discussion, then you have to give honest, informed discussion. If you want to toss off dismissals of loss and suffering or personal attacks and snark, then that is what you'll likely receive in return. The only long standing tradition I've seen is, when on Punaweb, do as the Punatics do... (and keep it local enough for the powers that be - don't green text me Mod2 :)

[Punatang]

scientists that publish regenerative agriculture studies with The National Academy aren't wackos

Your wackos, Jan Dutkiewicz and Garrett Broad, did not write that.  Neither honest nor informed. If you told Jan Dutkiewicz or Garrett Broad you have methane producing ruminant goats to mow your yard they would probably disown you.  No one said they were the same as cows.

[ironyak]

They're not "mine" Punatang, they're authors who mentioned the same study in the opening paragraphs of their article. I'm sure the goats would win the Pepsi emissions challenge against any conventional lawnmower. You're the one going on about how cows are needed - they're not, and they cause more emissions than their contributions to the land ultimately capture. Just actually read the study instead of reflexively attacking.

Again, don't have a cow, have a goat or sheep instead and you can still get milk/wool, meat, soil health, and climate mitigation benefits. If that's actually the goal and you're not just a after story to tell yourself to justify preferred choices. As you've been told before - follow the science!

Nuke away Mod.

[Punatang]

Again, don't have a cow, have a goat or sheep instead and you can still get milk, meat, soil health, and climate mitigation benefits. 

Au contraire mon Frere, goats in Puna produce more harmful emissions per unit of milk than cows. Not very informed.

Dairy production causes a number of environmental harms, including methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions. But dairy goats actually contribute more emissions per unit of milk produced than cows. Smaller ruminant animals like sheep and goats emit 6.5 kilograms of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gases for every kilogram of milk, compared to only 2.8 kilograms for cows, who are larger animals that produce more milk. 
Globally, the cattle industry is responsible for more greenhouse gases simply because there are more of them. But it would be incorrect to say that scaling up goat milk production could be a climate solution, as some of its advocates claim, due to goats’ higher individual emissions rates.

https://sentientmedia.org/dairy-goat-production/

https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api...5d/content

You insinuated that I called the 4 scientists wackos. Dishonest.

[ironyak]

And you insinuated that I hero worship some authors because I read and linked their article. You're really not great at seeing how you're initiating these interactions and leading to repeated push back from myself, and other posters, and the Mod, and Rob... You get what you give.

As for goat milk, I'll actually take some time and read the FAO report. I don't know of anyone locally that is pushing for goats to be used for large scale commercial milk production, rather it's more an incidental side benefit of raising goats (and as I said, none of mine are currently in production). How's those stats for kg of meat looking though? Or for effective CO2 capturing? Hmm....

Ah Punaweb, the only place where you can have a beef over goat milk!

[Punatang]

You're really not great at seeing how you're initiating these interactions


This is something I think we probably have in common then. It's mind blowing for myself and I'm guessing many when you admonish me about snark. You jumped on me the very first time I said hello and have been relentless ever since.

Having said that, I love the tone of your last post and would be thrilled to reset. 

I've husbanded ruminants but never goats. They seem pretty cool though and definitely Bill Mollison approved. I got an earful about him recently though...

They say having a goat is like having a three year old boy in a goat suit.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

A few notes on Goats vs Cows in Puna.
(Full disclosure, I lived on a dairy farm (cows) as a child, and raised goats as a young adult.  At one time or another I made my own yogurt, fresh cheese and ice cream.)

It's difficult to precisely quantify the gas output of animals.  As one of the articles posted earlier noted, it depends greatly on what the animals eat.  It was measured that goats have a greater output on CO2 per unit of milk produced compared to cows, but there was no statistic for methane. I'd like to see the numbers for methane as it's a much more dangerous greenhouse gas.

In Puna most people would probably keep a small number of animals, making it simple to recycle, reuse, and turn their waste into fertilizer.  This saves on buying fertilizer for garden use, which would require additional packaging and shipping.  Large dairy operations send their effluent into huge holding ponds where bacteria create additional amounts of methane and other gases.

Puna milk is fresh, healthy and requires no packaging, no shipping, no trip to the store.  Which as with the fertilizer example above reduces your carbon footprint.

How do you measure those details?  Not sure you can.  Not sure if it's been done.
Not everyone can produce their own milk, but if it's possible I would guess (no link, no study) that milk from your farm is better for the environment than any carton of any dairy bought from a store.