Global Warming Is On Its Way,But Hawai`i Is Ill-Prepared
What, exactly, will it take for the state of Hawai`i to sit up and take note of global warming?
Will it be when the fringing reefs, weakened by repeated bleaching, begin to die? That might not come until the mid-21st century, by which time any action will be too late to stop the worst effects.
Perhaps the moment of truth will arrive when El Ni–o-induced drought causes an entire year’s worth of crops to be lost in Kula. With Maui now suffering yet another upcountry drought, this may happen sooner rather than later.
Maybe the dawn of recognition will come when Hawai`i’s long-line fishing boats have to travel so far for their catch that they no longer home-port in Honolulu, or when increased levels of nitrates in drinking water sources make costly treatment mandatory. Or when federally mandated measures to eliminate carbon from power plant emissions double or triple electric rates. Or when rising seas drown the beaches fronting Waikiki’s priciest properties.
But why should Hawai`i wait until events beyond its control rip the blinders from its eyes?
Debate about global warming is no longer centered on the whether, but on the how much and when. Yet Hawai`i, along with the rest of the nation, continues to burn carbon, in the form of fossil fuels, as though there were no tomorrow. Which, of course, there may not be, should current patterns of consumption be unaltered.
Flawed Bookkeeping
In the inappropriately named Climate Change Action Plan, Hawai`i policy-makers argue first that the state’s contributions to the global problem are so minuscule that there is no meaningful action we can take to head it off. Such argument is morally bankrupt. Apart from that, it is not true.
Hawai`i can lead by example — and, given how much more it will feel global warming’s impacts than most other states, it certainly should.
With abundant solar energy, solar water panels should be standard equipment on all houses and buildings. They’re not, and clean-energy advocates are constantly on the defensive to protect what few tax breaks exist for new solar installations.
With its temperate year-round climate and development that generally follows the coast, Hawai`i should have more bikeways and jogging paths for commuter use than any other city in the nation. It doesn’t; bicyclists get little respect from planners or car-borne commuters.
With its economy so heavily dependent on ocean-oriented tourism, the state should take all means necessary to protect near-shore ocean resources. It hasn’t yet: near-shore waters continue to receive polluted runoff, including pesticides, fuel products, and sediment — almost all of which could be mitigated or eliminated through controls on urban growth.
To encourage strategies — such as those mentioned above — that address global warming, the state has the power to impose taxes and land-use controls. Yet in the Climate Change Action Plan, it shies away from them, arguing that the associated costs would be too great for the state’s fragile economy to support.
A carbon tax of $125 a ton, for example, would not result in enough reduction of emissions to bring Hawai`i into compliance with the levels called for in the Kyoto protocol, the international agreement intended to avert the worst effects of global warming. Even so, this tax was rejected by authors of the Climate Change Action Plan since the state gross regional product would sustain loses of barely half a percent over 20 years. The number of job-years lost over the same period — 76,249 — represents an even smaller percentage loss to the job market: 0.00054 percent. A tax of $50 a ton, with economic consequences still smaller, was also rejected as far too extreme.
But there’s something fundamentally wrong with the economic analysis of the Climate Change Action Plan: it counts debits on one side of the balance sheet, but ignores completely those on the other side. Thus, it makes no mention of economic losses associated with the do-nothing scenario of global warming: property damage sustained by businesses and home-owners, loss of jobs in the ocean-based recreational sector and related tourism industries, increased costs of water treatment, loss of revenues from commercial fishing and loss of recreational and economic value to families engaged in artisanal fishing. This is only a start, but it is sufficient to suggest that the costs of doing nothing far outweigh the piddling costs of doing something.
Nor, we would add, does this list of costs include the incalculable costs global warming will likely bring to Hawai`i’s terrestrial ecosystems.
A Pound of Costly Cure
The Climate Change Action Plan’s tight-fisted approach to carbon taxes does not extend to high-tech (and hugely expensive) proposals to mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration. These hold great promise — not of working well (even the engineers involved acknolwedge energy conservation is a far better way to reduce carbon emissions), but of sparking an enormous rise in energy costs. Here again, though, the balance sheet of Hawai`i policy-makers is silent on the costs of mitigation.
Reading the Climate Change Action Plan, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that its authors have weighed the costs of a pound of cure against the ounce of prevention — and have concluded that the economic growth associated with spending more money on cures is far to be preferred to potential losses associated with an environmentally friendly and less energy-extravagant and wasteful policy of conservation.
This is insanity. Such an approach is absolutely indefensible — and yet, without a dramatic turnaruond in public understanding and opinion, it will probably carry the day.
But our policy toward global warming should not be based on continuing to let polluting corporations and individuals get away with not paying for the real costs — economic and environmental — of their actions and decisions.
Carbon taxes, far in excess of the modest levels considered (and rejected) in the Climate Change Action Plan should be imposed, which might have the effect of getting people to buy more efficient cars, to ride bikes, to support public transportation, and to demand that their houses be built within walking distance of neighborhood commercial centers.
Tax credits for installation and use of alternative energy sources (including solar water heaters, photovoltaic panels, and wind-driven generators) should be generous.
Instead of continuing to build roads (which only encourages more people to drive more miles), the state and counties should focus on relocating key routes away from coasts and building more bicycle routes.
Instead of lobbying for longer runways and bigger airports, the tourism industry should start turning its attention to protecting Hawai`i’s biggest draws: its clear seas, colorful reefs, expansive beaches, and gentle climate.
If we wait for the rest of the world to act before we protect these assets — to say nothing of our priceless forests and native species threatened by climate change — we will wait forever. Climate change is coming. It will devastate Hawai`i if nothing is done to mitigate its impact. And to head off its worst effects, the state must take action now.
Volume 10, Number 2 August 1999