In these past few weeks, you probably noted news of several major reports about the devastation already caused by climate change worldwide, and the frightening future ahead of us if we do not fix this problem now. We do not think you should be concerned — you should be terrified.
Several gases that sit in the atmosphere of our planet retain some of the energy that comes from the sun, allowing Earth to have a nice temperature that prevents us from being frozen like a Popsicle. However, this greenhouse gas phenomenon is being intensified by our ongoing carbon emissions, such that now more heat gets trapped.
Hotter air holds more water, enhancing evaporation that causes drought, which in turn ripens conditions for heat waves and wildfires. In humid places, constant water evaporation eventually comes down in such massive downpours that it creates floods. Warmer ocean waters also evaporate faster, increasing wind speeds and the downpours of hurricanes, whose surges can be aggravated by sea level rise.
Examples of these climatic changes have made headlines worldwide, recently. After historic droughts, mega wildfires and heatwaves have been reported in the U.S., Greece, Sweden and Australia, whereas unprecedented rainstorms have resulted in massive floods in the U.S., Japan and many Asian countries. There were also several particularly strong hurricanes: Harvey, Maria, Michael and typhoons Jebi, Mangkhut and Yutu.
People lost their lives, their homes, their livelihoods in these events; scary, no?
This year, Hawaii had our own share of impacts with Hurricanes Lane and Olivia. We were far from their direct paths at Category 3 — yet roads were flooded, houses inundated, sewers overrun, powerlines downed, and even a large wildfire during Lane.
Under ongoing emissions, wind speeds above 230 mph are projected by the end of the century — technically, Category 6 or 7 hurricanes. Imagine our tiny isolated islands in the direct path of that. Our Achilles heel, however, may be having enough drinkable water given intensifying drought, and the risk of water contamination due to saltwater intrusion caused by sea-level rise.
We must take this problem of climate change very seriously.
One has to applaud the promises by our governor, mayor and Legislature for their solutions that will kick in in a few decades.
Unfortunately, even our best political intentions now may not be sufficient for the scale of the problem. Our current goal is 100 percent clean energy by 2045; yet our own studies suggest that unprecedented climatic changes will be common in this state by the 2030s.
To fix this problem we really need every one of us to become more proactive, and do what we can to clear our carbon footprint.
For us in Hawaii, ecosystem restoration is a low-hanging fruit. Gross calculations suggest that Hawaii’s native forests, if fully restored, could store an extra 800 million tonnes of CO2, or most of our carbon emissions for 50 years at current rates.
Ecosystem restoration at that scale is daunting; but remarkably, we have all we need: lots of land, organizations, and people.
So we started a project three years ago called the Carbon Neutrality Challenge (www.gocarbonneutral.org). The math is very simple: A person in Hawaii generates about 12 tonnes of CO2 per year. It would only take 12 wiliwili trees around five years to remove all of that carbon. Or try three koa, or about 20 ohia, or a diversity of other native trees crying out for help. We just need to put those trees in the ground, improving upon prior experiences and available expertise.
Recently, we aimed to plant 1,000 trees in one day. We ended up having 200-plus volunteers and planted 1,100 trees in about two hours. With a million people in the state, it would take each person planting 10 trees to achieve 10 million planted.
Gov. David Ige is committed to make our state carbon neutral before 2050, and Mayor Kirk Caldwell proposed to plant 100,000 trees by 2025. We should all help them achieve that before they leave office.
The Carbon Neutrality Challenge will continue to be improved, and we hope it becomes a venue for anyone to be part of the solution to climate change.
Of course, restoring ecosystems will be difficult — but so was going to Mars, and we just put a robot there last week. We just need to set our minds in a goal, get started and do not give up when facing difficulties.
