We have to be aware of what’s going on offshore and how it affects us. Check out Energy specialist Art Berman’s presentation The Shale Revolution & The Current Oil Price Collapse.

Because energy and agriculture – fuel and food – are inextricably tied together, we need solutions that utilize everybody’s contributions.

The rising cost of producing petroleum energy products impacts everything we do. It takes energy to do work and especially to get food onto our plates. Sure technology extends energy, but technology is not energy in itself.

As for food production, we need help in every way we can get it, and certainly not hindrances. As an example, banning GMOs and Roundup raises the cost of food production without alleviating any proven danger. This impacts the people who can least afford the resulting increase in food prices.

In every single thing we do, the pluses have to exceed the minuses. How can we achieve this? We can form a business model that helps us maximize value to our people. Our Hawaii Island Energy Cooperative model, with its local control, helps us adapt the quickest to future situations that we cannot anticipate now. The co-op model can also help us become more competitive with the rest of the world without leaving anyone behind.

We have a lot of positives here on the Big Island. We’ll be over the geothermal “hot spot” for 500,000 to a million years. We have great wind resources and, like everybody else, we have sunlight. Thanks to our gentle climate, we don’t need artificial heating and cooling. The Big Island is especially blessed.

The sooner we can focus on taking care of all of us, and not just a few of us, the sooner we can start preparing for the future.

We CAN do this. We must.