Confident pitchers and a resourceful team

Starting with his first pitch in Sunday’s game in which his Honolulu team defeated South Korea, 3-0, to win the Little League World Series title, cameras zoomed in on the star of the day, Ka‘olu Holt, who appeared poised and, well, happy. Surely, his confidence was rallied by capable and close-knit teammates as well as coaches and cheering family and friends. One day earlier, pitcher Aukai Kea led the team to a 3-0 win over Georgia. Hawaii is now one of seven U.S. states with at least three LLWS titles. Congrats on winning the title, guys — and we’re proud of your show of aloha throughout the 10-day tournament. Honolulu also brought home the 2018 event’s sportsmanship award, which it shared with the Georgia team.

Talk of hurricanes turns to climate change

A common thread in every discussion of weather phenomena these days is to connect the dots between the storm and global warming. The observation that it increases the intensity of storms has been made, frequently.

A 2015 report by an interdisciplinary and international team, “Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change,” notes the science, applicable to last week’s Hurricane Lane: that the heat increased the moisture Lane took up from the ocean, and dropped in such great quantities on Hawaii island and Maui.

And the water offered some help containing Maui’s destructive brush fires — an up side, if that’s possible with climate change.