Climate rally brings hundreds to Waikiki

Hundreds marched in Waikiki on Saturday morning in a demonstration to fight climate change, joining similar marches across the country.

Demonstrators chanted and carried signs such as “Make America Think Again” as they made their way down the sidewalk along Kalakaua Avenue from King Kalakaua Park to the front of the Honolulu Zoo.

The march was part of the People’s Climate Movement, which began in 2014 with a march in New York City. On Saturday, the march was held on the 100th day of Donald Trump’s presidency.

“We’re organizing to stop Trump’s rollbacks on policies that helped address climate change and environmental justice,” said Sherry Pollack of the group 350.org Hawaii, one of the sponsors of the march, in a statement. “This is a mobilization about bringing solutions to the table and targeting elected representatives to take action.”

Protester Akiemi Glenn said she was marching to amplify the voice of her people in Tokelau, a nation with about 1,500 inhabitants on three coral atolls about 2,300 miles southwest of Hawaii.

The islands are being inundated by rising sea levels from global warming, she said, and on a return visit to her homeland, she found the ocean had washed away some of her ancestors’ graves.

She said Tokelauans have been trying to raise awareness about rising sea levels since the 1970s and still remain hopeful something can be done before the atolls are submerged in about 50 years.

“We’re not going to just give up and let our islands sink,” she said. “We’re going to fight.”

Anela Ickes, 15, of Wahiawa, who is also Tokelauan, hoped to bring awareness to the struggles of Tokelau for the sake of future generations.

“It’s sad because I want to one day go to Tokelau and I don’t want it to be gone,” Ickes said. “I want to show my kids where our family comes from.”

Nine-year-old Ella Lessary, of Makakilo, participated in the march with her mother, carrying a sign she made that said, “I’m with her!” beneath a hand-drawn picture of the Earth.

Lessary said she helps pick up litter she finds on the beach.

“People keep on littering,” she said. “I don’t like it.”

She said she wants more people to care about the Earth.

Several students from an environmental club at Chaminade University also attended the march.

“I just loved how passionate everyone was,” said student Coco Stewart.

Her professor, Gail Grabowsky, director of environmental studies at Chaminade University, said every year she teaches a course on current issues and planned last spring to teach a course on climate change for this semester.

With Trump in office, she said, she has new course material almost on a daily basis with the president’s executive orders and other actions, such as allowing more offshore oil drilling.

Grabowsky called Trump the “galvanizer in chief” because he has brought people together on a variety of issues such as in the Women’s March in February and Saturday’s Climate March, giving people a reason to get together and have a discussion.