71
COURTESY POLYNESIAN VOYAGING SOCIETY / OIWI TV
Captain and Pwo Navigator Kalepa Baybayan, left, reviews Hokule‘a’s travel plan through the Great Lakes’ locking system with his crew. This portion of the journey is Leg 23 of the the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage.
The voyaging canoe Hokule‘a left Jersey City, N.J., on Saturday en route to a historic first encounter with the Great Lakes.
The 23rd leg of the Malama Honua Worldwide Voyage will take the canoe through New York via the Hudson River and on to the fresh water systems of the Erie Canal, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence Seaway, eventually reaching the northernmost point of its two-year journey with an arrival in Sorel, Quebec, in mid-September.
“Exploration is core to what we do, which is why we are sailing Hokule‘a to waters where we never imagined she could go,” said Nainoa Thompson, president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society and master navigator, in a statement released Saturday. “Because of Canada’s lock system and other complexities, the voyaging team has spent months preparing for this leg by researching and studying these waterways.”
The current leg will allow the Hokule‘a crew to traverse the Erie Canal, from Albany, N.Y., to Buffalo, and experience Canada’s parks, lakes, rivers and wetlands and learn about local conservation efforts.
The canoe is scheduled to journey through 52 locks and under 160 bridges, crossing freshwater systems throughout inland Canada.
Weather permitting, Hokule‘a is expected to return to New Jersey in October before beginning its journey back to Hawaii with a pass along the U.S. East Coast.
With more than 200 volunteers cycling through as crew members, the canoe has sailed more than 26,000 nautical miles since departing Hawaiian waters in May 2014, making stops in 14 countries and 70 ports.
The canoe still has a long way to go. By the time it completes its journey in June 2017, Hokulea will have covered more than 60,000 nautical miles, with stops in 27 nations and 100 ports.
Why? Long past time to come home.
Hokule`a and Hawaiian Air – Making It Pono?
Despite Nainoa Thompson’s heroism and hard work, there is tragic irony in “The Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage Sponsored by Hawaiian Airlines”. This voyage of sustainability is being mainly sponsored by one of the top climate polluters in our community. Is this sponsorship why Nainoa and his crew have failed to speak out about the main source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Hawaii – long distance passenger travel on Kerosine-powered jet aircraft?
The three year voyage of this precious wa’a has resulted in tremendous GHG emissions produced by the constant flying of crew members and family from Hawaii to and from far flung destinations around the globe. Are folks ignoring these WWV GHG emissions out of shame or guilt?
Beyond the WWV, why have our local media outlets, policymakers and environmentalists paid so little attention to the problem of Aviation-related GHG pollution?
Beyond our collective sense of guilt as frequent users of jet travel, many of us work in the airline industry or know someone who does. Even more significant is the fact that this is also the most baffling sustainability challenge we face here in Hawaii. Unlike solar panels or an electric vehicle, what can we really do about Aviation-related GHG emissions?
Given our tourism-based economy, our distance from other population centers, our reliance on inter-island air travel and the absence of a GHG-free source of power for commercial long-haul aviation, it seems impossible to envision any viable solutions.
Over the past year we had a first hand look at just how limited the Solar Impulse aircraft was – huge, fragile, expensive, slow, carried just one person, and (just like Hokule`a) the large crew needed to service it had to followed it around the globe by using conventional jet aviation.
The sad fact is, we are stuck with our climate-killing jets, with no hope for any real alternatives. Is this why our leaders have tended to be silent about Hawaii’s #1 climate and sustainability problem?
This is like a shameful family secret no one is willing to talk about, especially when out of town guests are visiting, “Aloha IUCN, welcome to paradise. We hope you enjoyed your flight.”
On the other hand, maybe this is the right time to face the truth – the GHG emissions related to Aviation is Hawaii’s primary climate pollution problem, and we have no plan to reduce it. Maybe there is a way forward, and maybe, once again, Hokule`a can lead the way.
Many native peoples are mindful of their impact on the ecosystem, of their footprints. Before taking a resource, one should ask for permission or forgiveness. This is pono.
Perhaps, for the remainder of the WWV, the Hokule`a crew can consider such a prayer or ceremony before each take-off or after each landing, to openly ask permission for the many tons of CO2 their voyage is releasing, and to ask forgiveness for the solar energy this will trap in the air, land and sea, and for how this extra energy is melting the glaciers, heating and swelling the oceans, eroding the beaches, bleaching the corals and disrupting the balance of life in their precious Pacific home and the homes of their hosts around the planet.
Shouldn’t sacred chants and tears of sincere remorse be offered to the creator for the destruction surrounding each flight “taken”? Shouldn’t this be part of protocol?
Perhaps such honesty and sacred truth can make this voyage more authentically Pono, can begin to close the circle, and can help all of us to find our way back to Malama Honua.
Ouch – underscoring the reality that this is a PR project and like many other trendy endeavors, attaching itself to a widespread good cause, i.e. saving the ocean, etc, serving children, etc is common place. Seems like the canoe folks got caught up in their own PR story and started to believe their own publicity. There is a political side to the endeavor, too, which is impractical as well, when the actual law is considered. Oh, well, Hawaii itself stays afloat on a raft made of media hype these days, after all.
Hope their tow rope doesn’t break.
I agree and disagree wit DannoBoy because the prevailing ways and means for long distance travel is via jet aircraft, and the pollution per passenger over distance traveled is presently unrivaled. I have no financial stake in Hawaiian Airlines, so I say this as a neutral party. At least Hawaiian Airlines is underwriting the awareness building effort, and that is undeniably a great first step. Aviation represents 12% of fossil fuel emissions versus 74% from road transport. Water would have been great for interisland travel; however, politics and another industry monopoly effectively killed what would have been a viable interisland ferry system. We move perishable goods and medical supplies via jet that requires time-sensitive transport. Also, DannoBoy has not read into the cutting edge literature that admits that increased CO2 is not a bad thing. And if we did decide that CO2 emissions were there are several scientifically and fiscally viable methods–for example, ocean fertilization–that easily mitigates the CO2 issue. Perhaps the greater issue was and still is deforestation. Imagine a tree-living creature could traverse its way from New York to Alabama without ever touching the ground. That or traverse across Brazil in the same manner. Perhaps the easiest ways to get back to carbon neutral first might be reforestation through reclaimed ag lands because we now need fewer ag acreage to easily sustain the world’s population.
DannoBoy, I do hope that Hokule’a can catalyze a truly focused, global effort to mitigate climate change.
well said
Agreed. Good thoughts, Crackers. Thanks for sharing them.
“Aviation represents 12% of fossil fuel emissions versus 74% from road transport.” >> I assume you mean for the mainland, or globally, because in Hawaii that pattern is reversed. That’s why our issue is Aviation emission more than ground transportation.
“cutting edge literature that admits that increased CO2 is not a bad thing” >> This is a fascinating idea and I have not heard about it. Can you point me in the direction to learn more?