‘We cannot afford to continue to delay on policies that will help address climate change. Now is the time to take bold action.” Over 70% of Hawaii voters agreed with that previous statement, according to a Nature Conservancy survey.
As high school youth, we agree that change is needed immediately. Solutions to the climate crisis are at our fingertips; why are we brushing them aside? The public has voiced its opinions, yet the Legislature refuses to listen. When given the opportunity to implement carefully researched plans to help our islands, legislators refuse to act.
Many climate bills — and other necessary bills — have been killed by a few legislators holding positions of power. Chairs of committees are responsible for scheduling public hearings on bills referred to their committees. They can kill those bills by simply not scheduling a public hearing. Without a hearing, a bill will be stuck in the committee, unable to continue in the legislative process. Committee chairs typically don’t notify the public that they won’t schedule bills for hearings, meaning the bill’s supporters are unaware it will die until the deadline for a hearing passes. These procedures allow immense power to be concentrated in the hands of only a few legislators.
As teenagers, it is heartbreaking to see our beautiful home be slowly stained by the climate crisis. It is shattering to watch as people who claim to love this island as much as we do flick aside the climate crisis like an insect. It is baffling that, even as we children beg for a solution, all it takes is a sentence from those with unjust power to erase years of hard work.
We try to imagine the island our parents knew, but we struggle to understand there was a time when you could see the water from the streets in Kakaako, not just a skyline. There was a time when the beaches near our houses weren’t thick with seaweed, and the water wouldn’t appear brown and smell of rotting fish. There was a time when children would play outside, and the summer air wasn’t so muggy it made them stay inside instead. There was a time when the Ala Wai was full of healthy fish! There was a time when people could swim in streams, unafraid of deadly bacteria!
We can barely picture the island our parents describe. We wonder how unrecognizable their descriptions will be to our own children if we continue down our current path.
Without voting power, our voice is already quieter than the adults around us. Knowing that adults are being silenced, too, makes us scared for our islands. If we can speak so passionately on an issue of such significance and still be trumped by the choices of a single person, what does this mean for democracy?
Fortunately, there are solutions. It is possible to change the House and Senate rules to ensure that no single legislator has too much power. The federal and state governments are currently structured so that no branch of government can become too powerful. Power must be balanced within the legislative branch as well. Solutions such as term limits, increased transparency and accountability, and structural reforms — which were proposed but killed in the recent legislative session — are simple ways to promote democracy within our Legislature.
We urge the House and Senate to change their rules to operate more democratically. Unjust influence must be overcome, so that the Legislature reflects not the personal agendas of a few, but the overarching will of the people.
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Ania Lavrenchuk also contributed to this commentary.
Audrey Lin is a leader of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) Hawaii Youth Action Team; Sophie Pager is a CCL member; Leiali‘i Crowley is a CCL team leader; all are ‘Iolani School students.
