•GMO crops are toxic •Open your mind, KIUC •Sovereigns vs. slaveholders •Life just isn’t fair GMO crops are toxic GMO crops use herbicides, rodenticides, and pesticides just as sugar cane, pineapple, and coffee do on Kaua‘i. The employees are sickened
•GMO crops are toxic
•Open your mind, KIUC
•Sovereigns vs. slaveholders
•Life just isn’t fair
GMO crops are toxic
GMO crops use herbicides, rodenticides, and pesticides just as sugar cane, pineapple, and coffee do on Kaua‘i. The employees are sickened by these harmful practices.
These crops have been banned in Europe and many other countries. Schoolchildren have been sickened, and whole families have become chronically ill with breathing disorders in the areas where GMO crops are planted.
These monocrops grown in this way poison the land, air and ocean. It would be very good if these chemical companies would use organic sustainable practices when farming these crops on our island of Kaua‘i.
Tashi Maclaine, Kapa‘a
Open your mind, KIUC
To Phil Tacbian, KIUC chairman of the board, and Randall J. Hee, KIUC president and CEO, thank you for your response. We truly appreciate it. (“Easier said than done,” Letters, May 15)
We will offer suggestions, even though we are not shearwater or petrel biologists, nor are we wind turbine mechanical engineers. We have not spoken to the major landholders for available land and we are not environmental law attorneys.
We are Kaua‘i residents, who can see the bigger picture. This has taken far too long and it warrants national attention. How long has KIUC and the Planning Commission been working on this?
I may have struck a nerve with my letter and that is good. You are asking for suggestions, which means, you are asking for help. That is good. We are getting somewhere.
We are your employer, you report to us. You should not make light of any suggestions from the very people you serve. “Think outside the box,” is a realistic suggestion to help you.
Mike Gresham, VP of Kaheawa Wind Power at www.altenerg.com, says “… but some creative, thinking-out-of-the-box approaches on the part of government and utilities could help spur renewable energy development.” This is a company who had major challenges on Maui, but they got it done.
My questions for you:
What is the average flight path/altitude of a shearwater or petrel? How many sea birds have been killed due to a wind turbine? How far up the mountains can a set of wind turbines be built? What time of day do shearwaters and petrels feed?
Can the turbines be turned off and on at specific times of day? What is the normal speed of a wind turbine? Have you contacted a few universities for answers to this as a project for them? Can our senators, governor or our president do something about this to speed up the process of reducing our fuel consumption, lowering our utility bills, providing sustainability and more importantly, drastically reducing the control that fossil fuels has on us?
When is your goal to have one hundred homes with wind turbine energy? A thousand? Ten thousand? How long has KIUC been working on the Habitat Conservation Plan, and what is your goal for completion?
If the DLNR and the U.S. Department of Justice are providing roadblocks in the form of an investigation, imua, go forward. Go above them or around them. If this investigation has been going on since March of 2007, more than two years, how long will this investigation take?
We appreciate how difficult this is. You say “problems,” we say “challenges.” Some people see obstacles, some see opportunities. It’s been long enough. We say, enough is enough, and so should KIUC and the Planning Commission. The best defense for letters like mine, is better communication, an open mind and humility. Olelo o olelo, holo ka holo.
Ken Posney, Koloa
Sovereigns vs. slaveholders
In today’s world, I perceive two fundamental types of people in the political spectrum — sovereigns and slaveholders.
Sovereigns are people who believe “free will” is an inherent human quality to be constitutionally protected against coercion or compulsion and balanced with the equal rights of each member of the entire human family.
Slaveholders in today’s world are people who believe that governments have a right to coerce or compel people to act according to the governments’ will.
All national governments today are slaveholders that terrorize people into fear of imprisonment if they do not surrender their natural free will and submit to the government’s bondage.
It’s time to protect and balance free will, and the constitution of united diversity provides a framework.
Triaka Smith, Lihu‘e
Life just isn’t fair
I am totally outraged to hear that the government took one of the detainees waterboarding 183 times.
Many of us here on Kaua‘i have to work two and three jobs just to make ends meet and hardly ever get to go to the beach anymore.
Why should the prisoners get to have all the fun?
Johnny Robish, Kapa‘a
