Blog posts

AI's rapid advancement is reshaping creative industries, raising critical questions about intellectual property rights and sustainability. From Meta using pirated books to train AI models to artists battling image generators that replicate their styles without permission, creators across literature, visual arts, and music are fighting back through lawsuits and advocacy. Recent political interference in copyright regulation further threatens creative ecosystems, as tech giants push for deregulation while profiting from others' work. This tension between innovation and exploitation mirrors other extractive systems, challenging us to develop more pono approaches to technological advancement that honor and sustain creative communities.

Artificial intelligence is transforming industries globally while simultaneously imposing significant environmental costs through massive energy consumption (with data centers now using over 4% of U.S. electricity), and escalating water usage for cooling infrastructure. This blog examines how recent policy shifts toward coal-powered data centers further complicate this ecological situation, while also exploring AI's paradoxical relationship with circular economy principles—where efficiency-driven systems often inadvertently promote overproduction and planned obsolescence rather than sustainability. This tension is further illustrated by comparing energy-intensive AI systems with human cognition, which operates on just 20 watts of power while incorporating emotional and cultural intelligence, raising critical questions about balancing technological advancement with environmental sustainability and the ancestral wisdom embedded in traditional knowledge systems that have practiced circular principles for generations.

The devastating wildfires in Lahaina (2023) and Los Angeles (2024) reveal the deadly intersection of climate change and extractive capitalism, with both disasters fueled by extreme weather conditions and amplified by decades of colonial land management and aggressive development. Despite attempts to blame Indigenous stewardship and conservation efforts, these fires highlight how traditional practices like cultural burning could have helped prevent such catastrophes. Both disasters serve as stark reminders of the need to integrate traditional ecological knowledge with modern practices as communities rebuild, grounding recovery in cultural values, equity, and sustainability.

This post critiques the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics winners' work on institutional effects on prosperity. While their book "Why Nations Fail" argues that inclusive institutions drive economic success, it overlooks pre-colonial indigenous economies and how colonialism disrupted existing sustainable systems, exemplified by Hawaii's Ancestral Circular Economy.

The 2024 Nature-based Solutions Conference brought together over 800 delegates, including Indigenous scholars, researchers, practitioners, and artists to discuss nature-based approaches to social and environmental change. During a keynote presentation, Dr. Beamer and Kate Raworth explored how combining Indigenous wisdom with new economic frameworks could create more sustainable and equitable systems, inspiring hope among attendees through a mix of scientific knowledge, traditional wisdom, art, and ceremony.

In the many ways we can explore the connection between the circular economy and community health in Hawaiʻi, one is by focusing on food security. In this post, we discuss findings from the ʻImi Pono Hawaiʻi Wellbeing Survey, which reveals that Native Hawaiians experience more food insecurity compared to non-Hawaiians. We argue that the current linear food system in Hawaiʻi is unsustainable. We also advocate for a transition to a more circular food system, and highlight the significance of indigenous knowledge and ancestral circular economy principles, which can be applied to create a more resilient and sustainable food system for Hawaiʻi.

“The only option the Navy has is to safely defuel and decommission its facility.”

Kanaka Maoli attorney Camille Kalama and Dr. Kamana Beamer of the Kaʻohewai Coalition speak to Democracy Now! and a world wide audience.

Aloha Kuamo‘o ‘Āina (AKA) is a center for cultural and ecological peace, led by Keola Beamer and Dr. Kamana Beamer. AKA’s vision for the land’s future is to promote aloha ‘āina consistent with the mo‘olelo (stories) and values of Kuamo‘o.