A couple years ago I gave a speech to the graduating class of the Hawai‘i Community College. I talked about survival. I told them stories that my Pop told me when I was a small kid. And how they could make short-term decisions without sacrificing their long-term core values. It was very well received and it was good fun.
That was in May, 2007. That October, I went to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) conference in Houston. There I learned that world oil supplies are depleting faster than new discoveries are coming online. And that there are fewer giant oil fields being discovered, and that the world’s population was increasing at the rate of 70 million new people a year.
This was important information and, although not complete, it was enough to make me start to position our farm for five and 10 years in the future. If we were wrong? No harm, no foul. If we were right, we would be survivors.
After that conference, I could think of three things that would help the Big Island move in that direction, too.
The first was to let people know they were not alone. The E Malama ‘Aina sustainability Festival would help do that.
The second thing was to help get the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) sited on Mauna Kea. This would help to lift up and educate our keiki and future generations. And, it would provide a safe, steady income and stabilize our economy.
The third was to get as much geothermal energy as possible into HELCO as base power. It is the cheapest source of renewable energy and the discretionary income saved would benefit the low income folks, since they were the ones who would get their lights turned off first. It would also benefit the island’s small businesses, because their customers would have money to spend. That is what I mean when I go around saying: “If the most defenseless among us are safe, we are all safe.”
All of these things could be done without sacrificing our core values. We just need to do the right things, local style. We need to take our time and go talk story. If the folks believe that we have their and their keikis’ well-being foremost in our minds, then we can all go do this together. It’s not rocket science!
By the way, I went to the ASPO conference again last month in Denver – yet again, the only person from Hawai‘i to attend. After that conference, I am more convinced than ever that we are moving in the right direction.
It’s the same as what I told the graduating HCC students – about survival, and about making short-term decisions without sacrificing our long-term, core values.