“We have to do something!”
I’ve heard that a lot since Donald Trump was elected president. Often it’s voiced in a tone of despair that implies a sense of helplessness. What is there to be done when so many hard-won goals are endangered by this president-elect who scoffs at them as hoaxes, derides them as “political correctness,” and appoints their enemies to positions of power?
Hawaii has an additional problem many Americans must envy. We live in a state that has already embraced a number of items on the progressive agenda. We have set national examples in everything from racial diversity and tolerance to a woman’s right to choose to employer-mandated health care.
But what can Hawaii do now? Well, one thing would be a legislative resolution declaring that our state will honor the Paris Climate Accord. President Barack Obama and 193 other nations including the world’s other largest polluters, China, India and the European Union, have signed this accord. It has been ratified by 111 nations and officially went into force this November.
President-elect Trump has called climate change a hoax and said he will “rip up” this agreement. He doesn’t actually have to do that. He can simply ignore it. He has already begun that process by the insulting selection of Myron Ebell to lead his Environmental Protection Agency transition team. Ebell is a noted denier of climate change. Heading up Trump’s transition team for the Department of Energy is Mike McKenna, a lobbyist whose clients in 2016 include the Koch Companies and Dow Chemical Company.
Climate change is an existential issue for our island state. Experts have predicted that if left unchecked, it will result in a 1- to 6-foot rise in sea levels by the end of this century. A rise at the upper end of this scale would likely wipe out much of the tourism infrastructure in the Waikiki and neighbor island resorts and destroy billions of dollars worth of property values (including those in the Waikiki Trump Tower and the new condo towers lining Ala Moana Boulevard).
Increases in the size and frequency of hurricanes are also predicted. Those who remember what Iniki did to Kauai can imagine what a similar hurricane would do to Oahu.
But Hawaii doesn’t require a federal agency in order to be environmentally responsible. We can abide by the Paris agreement on our own. In fact, our state has already committed to generating electricity from 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. This should exceed Hawaii’s portion of the goal set in Paris for reducing global carbon emissions. A resolution to abide by the Paris Accord is not a stretch for us.
And we can hope the example will be followed by other states. California, another progressive state and by itself the world’s sixth-largest economy, would be a likely candidate. If the all blue states on the electoral map signed on, America would be halfway home to honoring the Paris agreement whatever Trump might do in Washington.
A majority of Americans — by more than 2 million — voted against this president-elect. If we only count the millennial voters, the ones ages 18 to 35, the electoral map is overwhelmingly blue. Clearly, the future does not belong to climate-change deniers and reality-show hosts who take office with the backing of hate groups. Trump’s tide will turn.
For now, if we are looking to do something, one thing we can focus on is preserving our world so there will be a future to inhabit. Nuclear war and climate change are the two most imminent threats to that future. Let’s begin there.
Richard Tillotson is a Hawaii-based writer; his most recent novel is “What You Will On Capitol Hill.“
