Nothing brings a global issue into sharp focus like seeing some hometown speci-fics pointed out.
The worldwide debate over global warming — a problem seemingly inhabiting the distant future — suddenly has an ETA. According to a University of Hawaii study released last week, prevailing temperatures in Hawaii will reach new, sweltering highs by 2043, a mere 30 years from now.
And assuming greenhouse gas emissions continue their current pace of increase, 2047 will mark a break from the past. From that point on, the coldest year looking ahead will be hotter than the hottest year in the past, according to Camilo Mora, head of the research team.
This sounds scary, but is it true? It’s impossible to know with any precision how accurately the UH team, whose paper was published in the journal Nature, has projected the future temperatures, based on weather observations, computer modeling and other data. But a lot of the researchers’ peers are taking the analysis seriously.
However, more important than how closely Mora’s team has forecast the future is this takeaway: This study is only the latest recent report to underscore the worries about the reality of climate change and its intersection with human activity.
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report just a few weeks earlier that reinforced the credibility of data showing the rise in global average temperatures, estimating that more than half the increase over the past 60 years is linked to greenhouse gas emissions.
A lecture given locally on that panel’s findings included projections that the edges of Waikiki and Kakaako could be underwater by 2100, with Windward Oahu becoming wetter and the Leeward Coast even drier. At the local level, coming to grips with the issue, in the various ways Hawaii structures its community life, must be an imperative.
In at least one sense, Hawaii already is following the principle of "thinking globally but acting locally" through the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative. This commitment set an aggressive deadline to reduce the islands’ use of fossil fuels by 2030, fuels that add to the greenhouse gases linked to global warming. It was powered partly by economics, since oil-based energy requires costly foreign imports.
But most of the state’s leadership has signed onto the collective decision to shrink the state’s "carbon footprint" as the right thing to do for the planet. Without a doubt, the pursuit of goals — to reduce fossil fuel consumption through efficiency measures by 30 percent and to boost the use of renewable sources by 40 percent — must continue apace.
There are other ways to accelerate Hawaii’s response to the prospect of climate change, especially in urban environments. To cite just one example: Cities around the world have been exploring ways of construction to replace heat-trapping materials in pavement and structures with cooler, more reflective components. More study is needed to deploy these technologies effectively — without boosting heat and energy use in neighboring areas, for example. But they do bear watching for future Hawaii use.
Global warming is projected to affect agriculture and tourism and must be a central issue in planning for those two critical industries. Rainfall, drought and the altered probabilities for significant weather events should influence how Hawaii approaches everything from water management to construction standards enabling buildings to withstand extremes of wind and sea.
If prevailing temperatures are going to rise as projected, the prospect of rising sea levels will be a major part of the fallout. Planners are giving thought to this anticipated repercussion. For instance, in 2011, the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization published a comprehensive assessment of risks climate change present to the transportation infrastructure.
To cite one element: Harbors are prey to storm surge but there is also the risk that high waters could overwhelm the banks of piers. The study used sea-level-rise modeling showing that by the end of the century, the level may overtop the banks of Piers 1-42.
And now it appears that the year 2100 may be projecting the problem too far out in the future. Whether the climate change within our lifetimes is as radical as these new reports suggest, it seems plain that preparing for the worst is the rational response. There should be more wide-ranging conferences on the subject and planning that goes beyond the conceptual stage. After the talking and the planning, all of that will need to translate into more action, and sooner than we thought.
