On March 9, the Associated Students of the University of Hawaii at Manoa (ASUH) passed a resolution in opposition to NextEra Energy’s takeover of Hawaiian Electric Industries.

We, as student leaders from Hawaii Pacific University, Kapiolani Community College, Leeward Community College, Windward Community College, UH-Manoa, and UH-West Oahu, support ASUH’s decision for both economic and environmental reasons.

We’re students. We’re here to get an education, and we don’t have a lot of money to spend on it. Yet at UH-Manoa, 27 cents of each tuition dollar goes toward energy costs. We need to lower those costs so we don’t continue to suffer tuition increases.

We pay the highest rates for electricity in the country — three times the national average — because we depend so heavily on imported oil. NextEra would do nothing to lower rates. In fact, it has already proposed $30 billion in gold-plated new construction — five times more than what HEI had previously estimated — that would result in drastic rate hikes.

As future college graduates, we will face steep challenges economically. Already, over 7,000 people move away from Honolulu County (two-thirds of Hawaii’s population) every year. This is the fourth- highest rate of outflow of any city in the country.

We need a critical mass of good salary jobs for us to pay back our student loans and eventually sustain a family in such a high-cost state.

But NextEra will slash jobs at one of the few big private-sector job centers in our state.

NextEra’s CFO has already stated that Hawaiian Electric’s workforce “will need to be reduced in due course” because “the organization … has too many people.” Clearly, NextEra will only exacerbate the brain drain of our island home, a second hit to our economic reality.

We also are deeply concerned about the environmental impact of this decision. Climate change is the most important issue facing our generation and future generations, and reducing our carbon footprint through renewable energy is absolutely critical.

Today, Hawaii generates 80 percent of our electricity from fossil fuels, primarily oil and coal. At current projections, we will see up to 6.2 feet of sea level rise in Hawaii by the year 2100. This means that much of Waikiki, the center of tourism, will be underwater; meanwhile, thousands of people will be displaced from their homes.

Luckily, Hawaii’s elected officials have recognized the dangers of carbon emissions and wisely pledged us to convert to 100 percent renewable energy by 2045.

While Hawaii has been making rapid progress, NextEra has suppressed rooftop solar and renewable energy in its home territory of Florida.

Here in Hawaii, NextEra has embraced natural gas, a fossil fuel recovered through the dirty and dangerous process of fracking. Indeed, Hawaiian Electric has stated that it will not pursue liquefied natural gas if NextEra’s takeover falls through.

Nothing would hasten renewable energy and be better for our carbon footprint than for NextEra to pull out.

As the next generation of Hawaii, we are the ones who will have to live with the consequences of the decisions made today.

Allowing NextEra to take over would damage our livelihoods and our natural environment.