Environment & Sustainability

Sneaking in Sustainability

When you think of the word sustainability, do images of farms, recycling symbols, and windmills come to mind? Sustainability can be a huge concept to wrap your mind around.

Reduce your Forkprint!

Due to my busy schedule, I am always eating on the go. But I love to eat healthy foods, so I bring food with me everywhere. I drink smoothies in the car, bring homemade lunches to work, pack dinner picnics to the beach, bring snacks to events – you can always find some sort of goodie in my bag.

MA‘O Farms Builds Community

A few weeks ago, I had the amazing opportunity to visit MA‘O Organic Farms, which is a 25-acre organic certified farm in Lualualei Valley on the western coast of O‘ahu, near the town of Wai‘anae.

Make a Difference this Earth Day!

Although Earth Day is officially April 22nd, Down to Earth will be celebrating it on Sunday April 27th with a special day of fun and music.

Sustainable Farming Trumps Industrial Methods

The need to produce more food in some regions of Asia during the past fifty years was—for a time—achieved by increasing the yields of grain crops by as much as 2.5 percent per year using industrial farming methods.

Soil is More Precious than Gold

As concern over diminishing soil quality grows in the Asia-Pacific region, natural farming methods may hold the cure.  The prime cause of soil erosion and nutrient depletion during the past thirty years is over-application of chemical fertilizer.  

World Hunger Can Be Solved With Vegetarian Diet

The United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that food production will need to increase globally by 70% to feed the world's surging population in 2050. The FAO says that efficiency gains in agriculture will be overwhelmed by the expected population growth.

As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and dairy products, and which are increasingly being adopted around the world, are unsustainable.

Cow manure, a source of green energy

There is a growing trend to use cows as a solution for reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Cow dung, or manure, is being used to provide electricity in Kansas, where cows outnumber people two to one. [1] In a demonstration project, manure from a cattle feedlot will be used to power 30 nearby homes. Over the course of a year, just one cow's manure contains the same amount of energy found in 140 gallons of gasoline. The manure can be turned into gasoline, or in other farmland states, chicken and turkey droppings are being directly burned in coal-fired plants.

Seventh Generation TV ad

Seventh Generation have a new ad for their environmentally safe cleaning products.

See their YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/user/SeventhGeneration#p/c/2AAC7791F096C6E7

Solar farm helps reduce Hawaii’s carbon footprint

A new 500 kilowatt solar farm in Kona will power 250+ homes on the Big Island, reducing oil imported to Hawai’i by 2,000 barrels annually. The concentrating solar power collectors, which are located at a 4 acre farm in the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai'i in Kona, are twice as efficient as photovoltaic panels, and cost less to manufacture.