 Thanks for joining us on Think Tech Hawaii and dealing with just a really tragic and devastating range of problems from the Maui wildfires. We're going to talk some about that today with Jeff Hortnoy, one of our leading civil litigation lawyers here for many years, and Ben Davis, professor at Washington and Lee School of Law and professor emeritus from the University of Toledo School of Law. Jeff, you're here, boots on the ground. What do you think need to be the first priorities recognizing that both short-term and long-term things need to get on out on the table quickly? Well, I just think it's an enormously difficult problem. I think the most important thing is take care of the people who have been displaced, take care of the families who have lost, love ones, find the remains, treat them with the care that they deserve. I think too much is being emphasized on fault and blame and lawyers coming in like sharks and vultures from all over the country, land developers coming in from all over the country. There's been a reaction. You can see now a lot of the bent up hostility towards tourists. Even going back to the takeover or the annexation is being revisited. So, you know, I think the emphasis needs to be social services, free legal services, housing, food, retrieval of bodies, and we'll let the blame game play out. But unfortunately, that's not the way things work in America. Even before the fires were out, the blame game started. The media is partially responsible. I think the government's public statements have been not helpful in many cases. The latest being the head of the Maui emergency system when he was asked about whether he would rethink not sounding the alarms. Instead of saying, of course, we're looking at everything saying I wouldn't do anything differently. Those are just for tsunamis. Those kinds of moronic statements are only going to create much more emotional problems. So that's how I see it. And, you know, I think we see that Hawaii is not immune to what happens in other places where there are natural and manmade disasters. And it's unfortunate. Ben? Well, you know, I, as usual, agree 100% with Jeff. And, you know, to me, it's a question of different levels of response, right? I mean, there's the immediate emergency response of recovery and those things and treating the remains with dignity of people and the family and the loss that people have treating that all that with dignity. So I agree. I do think, though, one of the things that strikes me is maybe in the next level of this is sort of what I call systemic failures, if I could say it like that. I mean, if somebody is saying that the alarms are only for tsunamis, right? That seems to say that there was a whole plan which was focused on tsunamis, but no one had really sort of had a plan focused on the possibility of wildfires, right? You know, I mean, the system was not prepared sort of thing for this kind of way of thinking, right? And so to me, that's sort of the, I don't know if the right term is failure of imagination, but maybe at least it should encourage a little more imagination in thinking of the kinds of natural disasters or manmade disasters that have to be addressed. I think that going to another level is that I wonder if we're capable to really think through the climate change aspects of these kinds of events. I mean, you know, we have a lot of private ordering in our system and then we have these separate federalism governments and things like that. And I just wonder if we're able to get our heads around these things because I remember watching Johnny Carson back in 1972 or 73 and having what we're called doomsayers on who were predicting exactly this, okay? I think one guy was named Paul Ehrlich if I remember them right. And here we are, 50 odd years, 40 odd years later, and we're seeing these kinds of things. And I feel like my generation has really done a lousy job of somehow incorporating this before it became some kind of crisis. Now, you could say, okay, you blame this person, blame the fossil fuel, whatever you want to do. But I just, it's like whatever, the point is, is that Mother Nature doesn't play, all right? And Mother Nature has a way, if you're not going to address her, she will find her own way to do things. And maybe we need to have a better grasp of that part of the reality and how to deal with it than we've allowed ourselves to. I don't know. That's something that kind of thinks that there's, and I'm saying Democrat, Republican, independent, whatever, just a failure, private sector, public sector, whatever. Just the failure of dealing with the horror that is going to be happening with all this that seems to be related to climate change. Well, I mean, the blame game has already been a number of series as to who did what, who didn't do what, what could have been done, what should have been done, even before the fires ever got started. And I'm sure that when all is said and done, when some calm returns and people look at this through a long lens, they will find any number of things that should have been done, could have been done, weren't done, were done incorrectly. I mean, and climate change will be a political blame part of this, that folks in Hawaii should have anticipated, should have anticipated the drought, should have anticipated the potential for winds, should have built firewalls between these former agricultural lands and major developments. But Ben, you're not here and you don't see what's going on all over these islands and maybe not this particular disaster, but it was waiting to happen somewhere and it's going to happen again. I mean, there is a professor at the University of Hawaii who deals with climate change and obviously has a political bent, but he's come out in the last few days to say what happened in Lahaina is going to pale when a Category 4 hurricane hits Oahu, which he guarantees will happen within the next decade. Have we done anything? Anything? Can we do anything if a Category 4 hurricane is about ready to hit the island of Oahu? You know, when you have one lane of road going in and out of Lahaina, when you have development in what was formerly agricultural lands, I mean, we can go on and on and, you know, easy to blame the utility company for maybe its poles falling down and now accusations the poles should have been underground. There are poles not underground all over the state and they didn't need to learn from this. You know, we had Hurricane Iniki and poles fell and we've had multiple fires with poles falling. So anyway, I go back to where I started. Are there going to be tremendous lessons learned? Yes. Is anybody going to do anything about it? I don't know. We should concentrate now on the folks who are suffering. So what do you think might be some of the most important things for us to learn for the rebuilding and the recovery, for going forward rather than the blame game? You know, I'm not a scientist and you know, I mean, there are some common sense things. I mean, and it's not unique to Hawaii. If you're going to build your home five feet from the ocean, you should be prepared for it to be washed away in a storm. So should you allow people to do that even if they're stupid enough to do it? Should you allow developers to build major housing areas next to fallow agricultural land without a fire block? Should you allow utilities to put poles not underground? You know, I mean, should you fund fire departments and civil defense so they have enough resources? On Maui, the water issue has been a major controversy for decades dealing with who gets water and who isn't. And now it's come to the forefront again as to whether there was enough water or whether certain landowners would release water. And I mean, these are not new issues, Chuck. As you know, you've been here as long as as I have. And you know, I mean, let's just be, in my humble opinion, candid about it. This state has never been really good at forecasting and fixing things before it's too late. I mean, you know, I'm not sure the competency level at various levels. I mean, the guy that was head of Maui emergency preparedness never had one day in his life dealing with emergency preparedness. Clearly a political hire at a 40 applicants, a graduate of the law school, he probably had his, I have more experience probably in emergency preparedness. So I mean, does it happen other places? I'm sure. But you're going to expose all this. The question is, anybody can do anything about it. And I give the governor credit and the attorney general, they've been right up front saying, Hey, we're going to look under every rock and figure out what happened and why and what can we do to fix it? The question is, what happens after that? Will it get fixed? And that gets to, I don't know, the public and private will, right? The public and private will. Do we have enough public and private will? I mean, I'm not in Hawaii, but in Hawaii, but I think more broadly across America, do we have enough sufficient public and private will to try to address these things? Now, I've just read this case in Montana that these kids brought a lawsuit to invalidate a part of the Montana Environmental Act that prohibited looking at climate considerations in Montana. Okay. So in a way, that's a step forward in that particular part of that statute is declared unconstitutional under the Montana Constitution. But to me, it's like, how is it possible that there could be a statute that was passed that prohibited looking at climate stuff, right? I mean, that you had to have the lawsuit to start with. And where was the political will inside the legislative bodies of Montana to try to overcome? Obviously, there are interests you don't want climate change looked at, right? But to overcome that, to try to deal with that kind of sober look that you say that you were highlighting Jeff, I have a stepdaughter who's up in Jasper, Alberta, right? They've had incredible wildfires up there. And here's the weirdest thing, they were in June, they had wildfires and then they had three feet of snow, okay? I mean, literally they did two weeks of each other, okay? And flooding too. I mean, it sounded like something out of some horror movie, right? And again, trying to figure out in that Canadian setting what needed to be done or what needs to be done in the future. All the things you talk about about not developing five feet from the water, right? All that stuff. Somebody authorized that or permitted that, right? And the person that permitted that in some kind of scheme thought that that was something that is okay, right? Well, at some level, maybe there's got to be the sort of, this is not okay. Now, some people might argue that that's being worked out by the insurance company, right? Yeah, you can build there, but we're not getting you any insurance. So when you lose it, you lose it, right? I mean, that's the kind of market result, I think. But I just don't think that we grapple with it and have the capacity to really tackle this. And so, as somebody said, the earth's going to be fine, okay? We may not be around, but the earth will be fine, you know? Well, but this fire here is interesting in a number of ways. And it's opened up a lot of political and social wounds. It's giving voice to issues having nothing to do with climate change, having to do with Hawaii. And as I say, going back to annexation, it's reopening tourism wounds. I mean, Lahaina is a microcosm of that problem. You have thousands of people living there who have lived there and their families have lived there since the plantation days, Filipinos, Hawaiians, Japanese. And then within a couple of miles of Lahaina, you have mega resorts and homes being built by billionaires. And it's reopening those wounds. And there's a lot of non-blame issues that are going to come to the forefront that actually go to the core of what Hawaii is. And is someone going to be able to make the political decisions? Because that's what they are. I mean, Hawaiian Electric allegedly had a plan before the Public Utilities Commission to get $100 billion or whatever the number is, over a year now to make some changes that they thought would be important. And it's still sitting at the PUC. We have seawall cases on the North Shore of Oahu that have been pending for decades. Nobody can get them to remove them. Houses are falling into the ocean. So anytime there's a disaster, everybody starts shaking their head about, oh my God, how could we have had this happen? And then what? I mean, maybe it takes a few factory fires right before you start enforcing fire laws and factories like we saw in the 20s and 30s. Maybe the same kind of thing's going to have to happen with the planet. I don't know. Well, when you say what you're saying and the reaction, I go with, it reminds me of after all the school shootings, the thoughts and prayers. Yeah, what's happened there? Yeah. It's like the thoughts and prayers. But the next thing, which is like how we get those cases that the seawall cases, everything you're describing, actually dealt with as opposed to the inertial structures that are in place seems to me something that we have to find a way to wrap your hands around. It's not probably politically popular, right? Because somebody always loses in that setting. I'll give you a perfect example. We had a major, major fire and a high rise. Multiple people killed. I can't tell you how much damage and it had no sprinklers. You would not believe the ongoing debate now five years later about can the government force these other condominiums, which are all over, that are more than X years old and were built before water, whatever you call it. I can't think of the precise word. Sprinkler system, sorry. And there are condos now fighting it, not wanting to spend $3 million after what they saw happen to the condominium down the block. There's governmental debates as to whether you can force it or not. How can you get lawyers to come up with excuses why we don't have to do it after they saw what happened? They don't want to spend $2,000 a unit or $20,000 a unit. And they saw what happened. So these are really imponderable problems. Well, if I can jump on that, I don't know. I mean, there's, at least to me, there's maybe one part of this, which is that private money not wanting to come up with its own nickel, right? So if you don't have private money, will it willing to come up with its own nickel? Is there public money to come up with the own nickel? It's like the, what are the led abatement situations in all these cities where we know that is bad. And therefore it has to be moved out of these places where there are kids who are going to be affected for the rest of their life by the flakes. So the landlord doesn't want to do it. So is enough of an urgency in the local or state budget or even federal budget to put the money in to make it happen? But if we're all in this game that we've been in for last 40 odd years, what does it reduce taxes and turn everything into user fees, right? This is what we get stuck with is these kinds of games of somebody saying, I don't want to spend $2,000 a unit. I used to live in Paris. We're trying to put an elevator in a five-story building. And the folks on the first floor say, well, I don't need to use it. It's a why shouldn't I pay for it? It's the person on the fifth floor who needs to pay for it. You know what I mean? So at some point, it's like, hey, sprinklers, important, here's the money, get it done by next week, okay? And if you don't, then we're going to find you or something like that. Who wants to be the guy to do that or the woman to do that? It's political will. Whether there is is or is not political will and climate change is, as you point out, and others right at the top of the list. I mean, you know, how many states don't believe in climate change, you know? I mean, because they're controlled by right-wing Republicans. Congress doesn't do anything about climate change. No matter all the noise they make. And I'm not talking about fossil fuels or anything. You know, I mean, that's obviously part of it. But we haven't done much about climate change. We had a devastating hurricane 31 years ago. Is it going to shock anybody when we have the next one? Has climate changed in 31 years? Hurricanes are in the Pacific every single day. It's just a matter of luck that they don't come here very often. And when they do, they haven't been deadly, except for one. Are you going to be shocked when this September we get a hurricane that's a category three? We're going to blame it on climate change? You know, it's happening. It's going to happen. What are we going to do about it? I don't know. The way I look at the climate stuff is that it's the Delta, right? You have hurricanes, but these are a little worse or a lot worse. You know what I mean? We had the ice age. They didn't do anything back then, those politicians. I don't know what they were doing then. Maybe they were frozen or something. Maybe they're being unfrozen now. We're finding them with little notes about I should do this. Not to put all the blame only in the United States. It is the great thing about climate is that it doesn't like tie to borders, right? And so talking about political will across borders, too, to do something. It is not very optimistic situation, but something's going to have to be done or something's going to get done to us. I mean, I think we should be building an entire fleet of interplanetary devices so that the 200 million of us can get off the planet right before itself destructs and go somewhere else and ruin another planet. That's what I said. I'm kind of like, you know, we ought to maybe do something about here. Just a little bit. I mean, we should do more. I don't know what they is because I'm not the scientist, but it's clear that there's a lot of stuff we've left on the table that needs to be done that costs money that we should pay to deal with. And I personally think that whenever you talk about government spending, that's what we're going to talk about. That ends up being spent on things that actually employ people, okay? So it serves an employment benefit at the same time. And it helps industries and things develop and all. So, you know, I just had an idea from your idea, which is that you remember the NASA thing where in 10 years, John Kennedy said we're going to be on the moon, right? We need that kind of approach to the climate stuff, I think, maybe. Where there is that kind of commitment that everyone feels like they have to buy into it because, you know, I don't know, some president says it is. I know that's Biden. I don't know who it is, but, you know, or some state governors are like really pushing it as a more central part of their agenda. Maybe that helps to break out the money to do the things that need to be done. I don't know, but somebody's got to set a serious goal and have a, you know, like such a commitment to it to move us farther along than these thoughts and prayers versions that we're in now. So as we come into our last minute, wrap up thoughts. We've got parallels between what we've called natural disasters, those fueled and accentuated by climate change and manmade disasters, the mass shootings, more than one a week so far in this country alone for the first months of this year. What, in your last minute or so, are the most important takeaways? What do we need to prioritize most if we're going to get commitment to the political and popular will for long-term and short-term solutions? Jeff? If I had the answer to that, I'd be president of the United States. Is that what it takes? I mean, it's a great, great question, Chuck. And obviously, I don't have any answers. You know, we started by talking about hopefully taking care of the folks that need to be taken care of, no matter what their losses have been, and then work on in Hawaii, figuring out what happened and why, and hopefully be able to do some things, have the political will to spend the money, to enforce the rules, to put in the regulations, to deter speculators, to deter those who are only interested in their own gain. And I'm not sure that anybody can ever come up with an answer to that. But there will be lessons learned, and we'll see. We'll see what, if anything, comes out of it that may prevent a catastrophe like this in the future. Ben, wrap up thoughts? I agree with Jeff, and I remain an optimist that it's possible to do what is difficult, or what seems difficult, if there are people of goodwill who were willing to spend the money and do the work to make it happen. And that's where, looking for that leadership, wherever it's local or at the state level or national, to actually make it happen. Obviously, people know things in science and all that that I will never know. But there are things that will be learned, and to learn and actually do something from them. I think the people of goodwill can do it. I got one final question for you, Ben. Do you have to be an optimist to remain an optimist? Think about that and let me know. And that's a great question to leave us with. Do you have to really believe in order to continue to be a believer? Yeah, yeah. These guys, hey, can we generate enough of a public and political will to commit to real community building, to real relationship building that honors the values that have made that possible wherever that may have happened? Thanks so much for joining us. Think Tech Hawaii, Aloha. Find your favorite charity or source contribute. Kokua, help if you can. Thanks so much and take care.