Cataluna: Real change has to happen in neighborhoods

This past weekend, the youth of Hawaii joined in a worldwide effort to call attention to the crisis of global warming and to demand proactive and corrective action on behalf of their future.

Having hundreds of students and their supporters take to the streets of downtown Honolulu with signs and slogans to demonstrate their concern about climate change is a positive, hopeful thing.

But maybe next time they can do a little door-to-door chatting as well.

It isn’t just lawmakers and businesses that need to hear the message. Everybody needs to hear the message. Often in our state, sustainable initiatives get support from elected officials and businesses but die among the people who don’t want anything of the sort in their backyard. That’s where the sign-holding and earnest education efforts are needed here, in the neighborhoods that aggressively work against green initiatives, in the community meetings where alternative energy plans are likened to blights and are called evil moneymaking schemes meant only to enrich the bad guys on the backs of the little people.

There’s been opposition to windmills. There’s been opposition to wood-burning plants. There’s concern about big solar farms taking over agricultural lands. On Hawaii island there’s renewed opposition to geothermal. Just about every step this state has taken toward reducing reliance on fossil fuels has been met with grassroots opposition.

That’s not to say community concerns aren’t warranted, just that passing laws isn’t enough. Each project has to pass community scrutiny and win support, often even if the project is being built on private land.

Here’s the thing about lobbying state lawmakers: They all know the game. All they have to do is say they support sustainability, take some campaign pictures of themselves near a bank of solar panels and vote yes on new legislation. They never need to be concerned about whether the new laws have impact because that part is out of their hands.

Likewise, shoreline setbacks to plan for rising sea levels are sometimes treated as merely suggestions. Things get built in inundation zones all the time.

The feds want to spend millions for a system of basins and channels meant to keep the Ala Wai from breaching its banks and flooding all of Waikiki during a massive storm event, but the community from mauka to makai in that watershed is up in arms and trying to stop the plan.

The efforts of younger generations to save the planet and to save Hawaii are greatly needed in supporting innovation. It’s not enough to tell the old farts in power what not to do. Viable alternatives need to be created and supported. If windmills and flood basins and geothermal are unacceptable, what can you suggest that’s better?

Solving the problem of climate change is going to take more than political lobbying and more than bringing your own jute shopping bag into Whole Foods. It’s going to take innovation and community buy-in, diplomacy and, yes, sacrifice. Some of this stuff has to be built in somebody’s backyard.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.