Hawaii, the Green Island

I have talked about the green efforts of Jeju Island, the biggest island of S.Korea, in E-gen couple of times. Today, I would like to introduce the biggest island of the U.S., Hawaii's green efforts to reduce the carbon foot prints. Hawaii has proclaimed that the islands will reach 40 percent renewable power by 2030. Not just that, the islands have tripled renewable energy capacity since 2005, while leading in creating renewable jobs. Most new homes in Hawaii have solar water heaters as well. The Hawaii's renewable energy sources are from Sun, Wind, Sea and Land.  The Sun's plentiful heat and light provide great source of energy. The most applicable sun related technologies adopted in the Hawaiian islands are photovoltaic systems, solar hot water and passive solar design and daylighting. These technologies have applied to homes and commercial buildings which result in huge savings in operation cost. Wind plays an important role in reaching the goal of 70% clean energy in Hawaii. Hawaiians say they have endless wind supply. Lanai and Molokai islands have the best wind levels in the country, and wind is available 40% of time there. Among the many benefits the wind energy can give, a lower impact of wind turbines on birds and other wildlife sets importance in the islands. Geothermal energy excavation had not started until 1960's. However, since its first drilling, geothermal energy makes up 20% of Hawaii's big island energy consumption.  Hawaii also explores the use of biomass energy from variety of sources. H-Power(Honolulu Project of Waste Energy Recovery), the city and county of Honolulu's "garbage to energy" plant burns refuse-derived fuel to provide electricity. Kaunai and Maui islands' sugar plantations produce biomass fuel for automobiles which is made from ethanol by sugarcane molasses mixing with gasoline. Today, the state Public utilities commission announced four rulings which push Hawaiian electric companies to reduce electricity costs and generate vast amount of renewable energy. While the states in mainland are struggling and fighting to reduce carbon foot prints, Hawaii moves ahead in executing green bills and applying green systems. Image: Google image Source: Hawaii govt. projects, U.S. Department of Energy, etc.

"Do we have a good plan to fight climate change that's as good as the plan we had for HIV?"

Jim Yong Kim, the former president of Dartmouth college and current leader of the World bank had an interview with the Guardian.  In the interview, he said that battles over water and food will erupt within the next five to ten years as a result of climate change.  He urged scientists to join together to come up with a solution to fight the climate change as activists and scientists did for 15 years to develop a treatment for HIV. He threw a question to the climate change community, " Do we have a plan that's as good as the plan we had for HIV? " The answer is no at current unfortunately. President Kim mentioned that there was not enough basic science research going into renewable energy. There have not been ways of taking discoveries made in universities and quickly moving them into industry. There have not been ways to test innovative ideas. He added that the climate change community kept saying what he meant by a plan. His answer was a plan that is equal to the challenge and will convince anyone that climate change community are really serious about the issue. President kim said that there were four fields that the World bank could help specifically regarding the fight against the global warming: Finding a stable price for carbon, removing fuel subsidies, investing in cleaner cities and developing climate-smart agriculture.  He also predicted that since the water issue was critically related to climate change and carbon is the currency of climate change, fights over water and food would be the most significant direct impacts of climate change in the next five to ten years. His interview with the Guardian reflects general people's disappointment over the climate change community's results over treating the issue. Though people are really committed on the issue, the slow change and the cooperation among the scientists overall lead the kind of interview the World bank president gave to the british paper. I hope his challenge and urge to the climate change community will refresh people's commitment over the issue and also remind ordinary people how the danger is close and imminent. Image: Google image Source: the Guardian, the climate change project, youtube etc.