Count the nearly 1,000 people who attended the summit where these high-ranking officials went public with their support. Add the thousands more who expressed their hope, excitement and concerns during the past two years of statewide community outreach, and there just might be enough interest to put Hawai`i on a sustainable path.
It was all optimism and projection at the 2050 Summit where officials released the draft sustainability plan prescribing a Hawai`i most of us will never see -- a realization that left many, including those who will be hitting retirement age when the preferred future is due to arrive, concerned more with the present.
"At the bare minimum, this plan will began the dialogue that needs to happen," said Shanah Trevenna, student coordinator of UH-Manoa's Sustainable Saunders initiative, a pilot project retrofitting Saunders Hall as a green building where the socially conscious can network. "My highest hope is that the state will take the community's input and give tool boxes to the community, launching 100 one-year projects across the islands."
The draft plan, which is set in the context of a society "awash in America's mass culture," says "80 percent of our food, 95 percent of our energy, all our vehicles and appliances, most of our clothes, and much of the rest of what we rely on comes from overseas . . . we remain vulnerable to distant global changes that we are not now adequately anticipating, let alone controlling. Unless we plan and prepare . . . and unless we aim for greater self-sufficiency, our way of life would seem to be increasingly vulnerable."
The keynote speaker for the event, Terry Tamminen, shared some of the lessons learned from spearheading sustainability initiatives in California, pointing out that "the economy is wholly owned subsidiary of the environment."
Tamminen shared the allegory of the Hopi and the people of Rapa Nui. While the Hopi have lived in the same place in Arizona for 10,000 years, generation after generation in an environment with very little to offer, the people on Rapa Nui, within a few generations of conspicuous consumption, denuded their forests and exhausted the resource base that had supported their flourishing civilization. The few hundred people left in Easter Island when Europeans arrived were living in caves and had resorted to cannibalism in order to survive.
"Speeding towards a cliff," Tamminen warned, "we can't hit the brakes at the last minute."
"We need to all become evangelists and help people come to this party . . . Who will be the first to say 'I will do a little less so that my children will have a little more?' With the faint chill of turning off the shower in the morning to lather up, who will celebrate the feeling of doing the right thing for the future?"
Tamminen used strong words in his sermon to the choir, and yet the overall sense was one of accomplishment. Having come this far, the many citizens and officials who worked to draft the plan seemed committed to making it work, if not for themselves than for those generations to come.
The summit was broadcast live on Channel 54 and is due to be rebroadcast.The draft plan is now available for download at http://www.hawaii2050.org. There is also a comment section to share thoughts on the draft. This is also where you can find out when the rebroadcast will occur.
Upcoming Hawai`i Island meetings scheduled for those who wish to comment in person will be held in Hilo -- Wednesday, Oct. 3 from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at Aupuni Center Conference Room, 101 Pauahi St. and in Kailua-Kona -- Thursday, Oct. 4 from 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Gateway Center of the Natural Energy Lab of Hawai`i, 73-4460 Queen Ka`ahumanu Hwy. Stephen McPeek is the meeting coordinator he can be reached at 989-1533; edestiny@gmail.com
