Organic Solutions to Climate Crisis

Just returned from a very relaxing holiday (vacation) in beautiful Kauai.  If you've never been there I highly recommend going. It has a great variety of scenery from the dry eastern side of the island which boasts a mini grand canyon to the rainforest interior that has the honor of having the wettest spot on earth, receiving an average of over 35 feet of rain annually! Of course there are beautiful beaches galore for swimming, snorkeling and boogie boarding. The island has also been the location for filming of countless movies and television shows, including Jurassic Park, Gilligan's Island, Fantasy Island, Blue Hawaii (Elvis Presley), and more recently Pirates of the Caribbean 4, a new Adam Sandler movie (not yet named), and a new movie with George Clooney titled The Descendants I was told.  There are island tours you can take that are specifically geared for pointing out many movie locations.  And don't miss taking either a helicopter or boat tour of the breathtaking Napali Coastline with its jagged and lush vertical cliffs.  

Hawaiian cuisine can be quite interesting and delicious; I especially enjoyed the fresh caught fish such as Ono and Ahi.  There is also locally raised grass fed beef which is used by many of the high end restaurants.  (I am not a beef eater so I didn't partake in the local beef dishes.)  The local fruits and veggies are absolutely incredible--fresh sweet pineapples, mangoes, papayas and bananas, plus Hawaiian staples such as the traditional taro root and some rice farms that were created by migrant Chinese sugar plantation workers.  Kauai had the first commercial sugar mill that was built in Hawaii, although sugar production has now declined and is no longer a major Hawaiian crop, and the sugar mill is no longer operational.  There is still lots of wild sugar cane growing by the side of the roads. 

One of the newer crops in Kauai is the cacao plant which is grown by small local farms.  There are several companies now producing gourmet chocolate which can be purchased in some of the grocery stores.  We took a tour of one organic farm that practices biodiversity and raises many different kinds of tropical fruits along with the cacao. There is an increasing emphasis in buying locally grown organic produce, and you will find many farmers markets available in different locations on the island. 

Speaking of organic farming, here is the "quote of the week" that I found in an e-mail from the Organic Consumers Association: 

"The future of life on this planet may depend on what we eat. Factory farmed junk food is the #1 cause of climate change, but we can save the planet by going organic.

"The greenhouse gas emissions from factory farms, deforestation, industrial crop production, food processing, and long-distance distribution make the food sector the biggest cause of climate change, responsible for at least a third of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Factory farmed meat, dairy and eggs alone may contribute as much as 51%!

"But we can change food system pollution into food system solutions. A worldwide shift to local, organic food production would drastically reduce food system emissions and turn the world's farmland into a carbon sink to capture and store 40% of global greenhouse gas pollution."

- Excerpt from Organic Consumers Association's "Food Agenda 2020: The Organic Alternative" http://organicconsumers.org/food-agenda/