 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. All right, I'm Jay Freidel. This is Hawaii the State of Clean Energy at Think Tech. Wow. And, you know, you missed out because we were having a very rival conversation up to this point with the associate dean of the William S. Richardson School of Law, Denise Anthillini. And I left, and Richard Wallsworth, assistant professor, visiting assistant professor at the law school. Congratulations, Richard. And of course, my co-host and co-chair of the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, Sharon Moriwaki. Sharon and I spent the day at the legislature learning so much about what happens and doesn't happen there. Hi, Sharon. Hi, Richard. Hi, Denise. So we're going to talk about climate change today. We talked about climate change at least in one program at the legislative briefing last Tuesday, the 10th, I think it was. And we, Denise was there and she spoke about it. And so we're going to pursue that conversation. We're going to look at climate change. So the first part of the show I'd like to ask you guys, what are we talking about? Because climate change is one of the, it's a can. It's a can that gets kicked down the road, you know, forever. And, you know, until we get a really bad storm, then people finally wake up about the can. But, you know, what is it that we're talking about? What are we concerned about that we need to make new regulations, statutes, policy about? What is it? So one of the things I like to do is not talk so much about climate change but the climate crisis. Okay, fair. Because I think a lot of people think, well, the climate always changes and they confuse weather and climate. So I really do think we have a climate crisis. And I think the recent, you know, conventions on climate change say we're, you know, we're about to break some passing points. So what does that mean for the average citizen Hawaii? It means sea level rise, which we already start to see evidence of. And we'll talk more about more concentrated, severe rain. The more increased likelihood of severe hurricanes. If you look at the hurricane maps, we've just been very fortunate to have missed severe hurricanes recently. And it means drying forests, drought. So real severe changes in our weather patterns coming up. And since we're an island community, we should be more concerned about all of those changes than, you know, we can't necessarily import water easily. And so we have to, I think we're really close to seeing those changes in the King Tides that have happened recently where we see. So there's a lot going on now. There are signs that are happening now that we really are at the beginning of a climate crisis, in my view. Is the crisis here or everywhere? Oh, I think it's everywhere. But each region of the globe experiences a little bit differently. So some areas are going to dry out. Some are going to get wetter. But in sea level rise, particularly in Asia Pacific and the Asia, Southeast Asia is going to be more severe than here. But we're going to kind of be at the center of the storm for a lot of these impacts. What are we doing about it? And what can we do about it? We're going to go to that in a second. So let me ask Richard, what's the time frame on all of this? So I put climate change action into two buckets. I give them names and I apologize in advance that I geek out on these names. We can adapt to climate change, we call that climate change adaptation. And we can mitigate climate change, climate change mitigation. Adaptation is the idea that we have to, we are living in a change of climate. We need to adapt to that change of climate. Mitigation is the idea that we keep changing the climate. And someday we have to stop. So what's our timeline on those two things? Today, we need to start today on both of those things. We have to adapt to the change we're seeing, the king tides. Mitigation, we need to stop. You know, we didn't hear much about this in the legislature today as we walked around and say today, what does today mean? I mean, should we go back to the legislature later this afternoon and speak to those people? You and I, let's do it. I mean, this could happen this summer and we discussed last week about the fact that this is an El Nino year and it could come upon us just as quick as 8.07 in the morning on a Saturday with 18 minutes to spare, if you don't mind me referring to that. So, I mean, parts of it are more distant than other parts, but parts of it are very close, I think. One of the keys is we can't get trapped in just responding to an immediate crisis and then the next immediate crisis and the next immediate crisis. We need to have a plan that we put in place over a period of time. If we bounce from crisis to crisis, we'll always be at 8.09 a.m. on Saturday morning and that wasn't a very happy place to be. Yeah. So what's the state of public awareness on this, Denise? I mean, I know the law schools, obviously the guys are invested in the issue because it's part of environmental and it's also part of... It's kind of law schools say responsibility to keep up on this because it leads to public policy. We can talk about that. But what is the state of public awareness right now? The legislature and the public in some ways they're the same. So I think, first of all, it is our cullion at the law school to keep up on this along with other units at the university and we're happy to have that responsibility and it's a big responsibility, but the collaboration is really good. So there's a lot of great stuff happening at the university. I would say that most people perceive climate change as a result of severe weather impacts or maybe they've seen a king tide and it's kind of shocking when you go to Mapura Puna and you see fish swimming through the streets or your car gets stalled or along the North Shore we have severe beach erosion. I mean, really severe beach erosion or Haula. So where you visibly see it, I think people start to get concerned. The other thing is I think people who have been born and raised here probably have more awareness because they've seen the change over time and they will say, oh, my lychee are spiking earlier, my mango are flowering earlier, you know, the yellow trees or it's January and the trees are flowering. It used to be March. So just those kind of normal day-to-day changes of the seasons are happening at different times. So I think if we speak in terms of common visible changes people can relate to that much easier than they can charts and graphs. But it is happening. It's an ecological calendar that's happening around us. We just need to pay a little more attention. You talk to farmers, you talk to people who garden, people who pay attention to their trees and to the coastline and they know things are changing more rapidly than they used to. Do they connect these phenomena with climate change? Remember where Donald Trump meant to him? I don't know where he is. He used to invoke him on this, but he denies climate change. Some of his friends in Congress, they deny climate change. And I don't think it doesn't have any effect on me when they deny it because I know they're wrong, but other people may say, well, maybe there's a chance that there is no climate change. Maybe there's a chance these phenomena, just repeating, you know, part of the natural cycle, the sine curve comes and goes. Are people affected by what he has been saying and his denial and the denial of his friends on climate change? Is that part of public awareness? I think in Hawaii we're sort of lucky that folks are a little more connected to the outside and what's happening. And so I don't feel like we see as much of that here as you might see in other parts of the country. There's a lot of interesting work done on how people perceive those different influences. And you see some of it in parts of the country you might expect, parts of the country that have voted for the Donald Trumps of the world. They want to relate to that message. Hawaii doesn't typically vote for the Donald Trumps. We want to relate to the other message. I don't think that means that there isn't still this natural tendency for all of us to bury our heads in the sand because it's such a big problem. Yeah. Denise, I'll ask you a question I asked you on January 10th. And that is, so what can we do here in our little wee island? I mean, if everybody behaved themselves, if everybody was completely religious about minimizing climate change, it still wouldn't really have a big effect on the world. I want to go back to something Richard said, which is we have these two opportunities. One to mitigate, which is to reduce our emissions, which we need to do as a responsible community. So if that means driving electric cars and taking the bus and changing the way we manage power plants and all that, we need to do that no matter what, just as a responsible community. But adaptation, there's a lot we can do because we haven't done very much so far. So making our highways more resilient, working on our infrastructure so it can survive sea level rise, reforestation so that we continue to capture as much rainfall as possible. You know, in more than 100 years ago when the inner parts of the islands were being deforested for sandalwood and all kinds of harvesting, the sugar plantations knew that the watershed was being depleted. And so there was this hurry up effort to create forest reserves and to reforest. So we know from our past that we can replenish our water supply by reforestation so we know what we need to do. So I think going back to your earlier point about the common person's understanding, I mean I think that puts more responsibility on the legislature. That is their job to be in front of these issues and to understand how the science, the policy and the law work together. So I'm hopeful that they will finally start to see that we really have the tools and Hawaii of all places has the tools to take action in concrete areas in ways that can be replicated. We are a leader. We need to accept that responsibility and act like it. So last year the legislature passed the commission for adaptation and mitigation. I'm just wondering, and they have met, and whether there are any policies that came out of that that were really fundamental, that we really, really need to do this. I mean have you sensed any of that? Or the UH, you also have a committee. Well I actually need to read the report which just came out. I think it came out the day that we had our conference or something. So it's ready for me to read. But to me that's the next step is to use the very good work that they've done that the legislature asked them to do. And now also the legislature needs to pay attention to that. So I need to dive into it. I think we need to pay direct attention to that. A lot of work went into it. A lot of excellent people contributed. So let's all read it and let's have a legislative briefing just on that report. That's a good idea. It's probably already scheduled, I hope. Yeah, oh good, good. And we really should get some recommendations that you folks have all discussed at the legislature back on Think Tech. You can hear more about, you know, I think it's, you know, and this came up in the program in the legislative briefing was about planning. And I think planning is sort of a dangerous excuse not to do things, right? Let's make a plan. We don't have to do anything, just make a plan. And as a result, the plan gets dusty, it goes on a dusty shelf, nothing happens. Part of it is doing a good plan and then following the plan. What happens is the plan does sit on the shelf. So in chapter one, it's what we have to do right now, you know. And I really, I take your point as to, we may not be able to affect climate change globally, but we can certainly affect the risks and the implications of it here locally. We can save ourselves. I think we have the opportunity to do that. I mean, you know, one of the things I hope we'll talk about is microgrids a little bit and solar and our ambitious energy goals. And there's a reason why we can be more ambitious in an island community because we all need to hang together. And this opportunity for experimentation and the climate where there is a lot of support. We know there's a lot of support for solar, for example. We know we have grid issues. We know that people like to innovate in Hawaii. And you know, we know what's going on in Puerto Rico now, which the crisis provides an opportunity. So we don't need that crisis. We don't need a hurricane to wipe us out to create that opportunity. We can innovate and leap ahead now. And we have some great entrepreneurs here. There's a lot of activity going on in Hawaii. So going back to plans, we need action plans. Action plans. Action plans. Action plans. Not just planning, action plans. And timelines, short-term, medium-term, long-term. And let's go, let's invest. Let's invest this session. So you're speaking that lingo. And you know, we had some other people at this program on the 10th that are speaking that lingo. But is it sufficient? You know, you have to have multiple voices. Legislature did not go home and at 2 o'clock in the morning come up with an idea about how to do this. They always say, come and talk to me. Give me your ideas. Bring me your tired and huggled masses. And I will act on that. So we have to, you know, put pressure on them. Who's putting pressure on them right now, Richard? Don't say Blue Planet Foundation. There are a lot of groups like Blue Planet Foundation that are putting pressure on the legislature. But I don't think that's who the legislature listens to. They listen to voters. We're in an election year. We all need to put pressure on our legislators. And I think we can have specific ideas. The idea of plans, you're right, none of us go home at night and dream up plans for climate change. I'd like to propose, based on the legislation from last year, we need a budget. We need a carbon budget. We all understand what a budget is. And there are a certain number of tons of carbon dioxide that we as a state can emit from now until infinity that allow us not to ruin our climate, destroy our atmosphere. We need that budget. There are a lot of folks in the state who have that expertise. The legislature could adopt that tomorrow. Well, so, okay, so. The university is talking about this. We heard from Chip Letcher. We've been talking about it a long time, you know. In the context of sea level rise and inundation. Now, in the context of extreme weather, which is actually more immediate, we'll get next summer. It's been nice knowing you guys. We'll make it to you. But, you know, who else is talking? You've got SOS talking. You've got the law school talking. You've got some of the foundations talking. Who is putting the pressure on right now? Well, I'm hoping that the conservation community will make a big push, because to me it's absolutely one of the key issues for this session. For example, the barrel tax. Remember the barrel tax? Yes, sir. Where does that money go? It's 60-40, right? 60%, am I right? It goes back to the general fund. That's not the original intention of the barrel tax. And in my view, it's time. Inexcusable. What are you going to say? Very good wording there, Jay. But at a time when tourism is at an all-time high, breaking records, construction has been at an absolute peak. Unemployment is at a record low. Where is all the money going? Do we really need 60% of the barrel tax to go to the general fund? It should go back into reforestation and innovation and energy projects. And so, I think Chris Lee mentioned that very briefly at the forum, and so this is a year to see the opportunity to reallocate. If we don't do it now when the economy is healthy... Will we do it later? We'll never do it. We'll do it now. That's right. Well, I knew we would be migrating into the how-to part of our show before the break, but now we're going to take the break. And when we come back from the break, let's really dive into exactly what you would tell them, what kind of policies and programs you would want to formulate, and what kind of timeframe you would like to have them act and have them create systems that will go into place. Ooh, there's so many issues. But we'll try to do all of that in 14 minutes right after this break. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Welcome to Hawaii. This is Prince Dykes, your host of The Prince of Investing. Coming to you guys each and every Tuesday at 11 a.m. Right here on Think Tech Hawaii. Don't forget to come by and check out some of the great information on stocks, investments, your money, all the other great stuff, and I'll be your host. See you Tuesday. Two, one, okay. We have found that on routes somewhere between Manoa and here there are some slides. So Denise, can you tell us what the slides depict? I wanted to share with you and with everybody watching the kind of ongoing saga of La Niakea beach on the North Shore. So I think most people have driven around the North Shore many, many times and are aware of the traffic problems. But at La Niakea in particular, you can see severe coastal erosion that's eating away really at the asphalt and the utility poles are tilting and recently with the big surf, you know, they put up all the yellow tape. So you have this absolute disaster there. You've got traffic, bottlenecking. You've got tourists and, you know, visitors crossing the road with little kids to see the turtles. You've got this very small beach that's being eroded, which is a very unique basking site for the Green Sea Turtle. And you have yellow tape and utility poles and hardening of the shoreline. So it's a, it's a disaster. So it's really concerned the community for a long time. And what we're looking for is for this, speaking as a North Shore resident, we're looking for the State Department of Transportation to start to work on how to realign the roads so it's climate resilient, right? So the, you know. So it won't fall into the ocean. Yeah. And so, you know, when you harden the beach, you end up with more scouring and erosion. But now with sea-level rise and with our precious beaches disappearing, we need to make room for soft solutions, what are sometimes called nature-based solutions rather than always putting up concrete and hardwall. So we're hopeful that Department of Transportation will start to really aggressively look at this. Yes. Thank you for the word picture. I can see now, I think I've seen these slides. You can see the roads falling out, falling off into the ocean. And we can't afford to do that. So Denise, what is the solution then? Is it like planting or is it moving way back? The roads way back? Some people call this managed retreat. And I don't particularly like the word retreat. But managing the shoreline in a way that's in sync with the natural processes. So eventually nature will have her way, as we know, right? And you can't forever stop the way, you know, even along other parts of the North Shore, like since that beach you've seen this severe erosion that took out part of the bike path this season. So it's coming. So we need to move back from the shoreline and allow the shoreline to ebb and flow. So the solution at Laniakea is definitely to move the road back, perhaps maybe to elevate it just a bit. And to use that area as a park or a buffer, you know. On the Makai side. Yeah, to move people and vehicles back. I wouldn't be bad at all. I think there's a lot of support for it. And also we have to keep in mind that it's a turtle basking area. So there is a win-win solution in there somewhere. There's also a condemnation in there somewhere. Actually, I don't think so. No, because Kamehameha Schools is willing. Oh, very important. They are willing to work on a solution. So that is a major step forward. And I think there is going to be a solution there somewhere. But no, they're very willing to work on it. What is the challenge? I mean, why hasn't it been done since it seems sort of pretty straightforward and reasonable? No, it's only been a decade of community meetings and all of that. Well, I think that, I don't know, I think Department of Transportation moves slowly. And they have a certain mission. I think that mission needs to be broader now that climate change and climate crisis is on us. And that traditionally hasn't been kind of part of their vision. But now I think it must be. So maybe, you know, we do have a sustainability task force that may look at that, and it's all the roadways. But if that is an issue that should be brought up to that group, that can really help them get the funds. Absolutely. These things need to come together, right? You can't just build highways in the traditional way. Especially in Hawaii, along the shoreline. There are many roads. There are many roads to losing our road system. So talking about the practical side of it, because that's what we want to do here, seems to me that if you get Kamehameha Schools to buy into that, then it's just a business deal. And my guess is they would be reasonable, my guess. And the State Department of Transportation, they could do this. This is within their mission and the capability to realign a road where I get stuck. You know, I'm trying to see a way to do this without involving the legislature. Well, I have some good news for you. So last session, Representative Sean Quinlan, who represents our district, got $15 million passed in the budget, specifically to move this forward. So the money is already available. The last session it passed, but that's $15 million. It's just for the planning. Oh, my God, really? And there's already been a lot of planning. But I think it's going to be the juice to move it along. So I'm optimistic. You might hear something in the next couple of weeks. We'll tell us about it. $15 million for the planning. Yeah. If you get to spend $15 million for the planning, how much do you have to spend to actually do the work? That's a really good question. Thank you. But we also can't do without our highway. So actually, but you know, it points out something that I wanted to get to is what agencies and players do you need to move to do a deal. You've got the landowner, presumably, at least theoretically, have the Department of Transportation. You have at least planning money. So who else do you need to talk to to get this done? City and County of Honolulu. They actually have a three acre beach park right there that's a passive park. They need to be part of it. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA because of the turtles. And really, it's the neighbors as well. And then there's some lessies of Kamehameha Schools land. The ranchers who traditionally enjoyed that area. For good reason, they all need to be involved. So Neighborhood Board and Community Association. Corps of Engineers. Corps of Engineers, absolutely. Department of Health. It's multi-stakeholder process. So all these years you've said you've been working on all these years. A lot of people have been working on it for a long time. And those people are still talking? All these different agencies and groups. Everybody is really willing to talk. DOT needs to move it. This is a great case study. It is. Yeah. And as you said, it's not just Lonnie and K. I mean, all around the state. You get a good model going on how everybody can work together. Let's make it a case study, Richard. What do we do starting tomorrow to get this done? You need to ask Denise that question. She's far more invested in this. Looking from the outside, looking in like you two, I say somebody just takes the lead and makes it happen. You always need a champion for these sorts of things. And so somebody within the government should be a champion. You have a champion? At the departmental level or the legislature, the executive, where is it? I need one. I mean, the guy who picks up the phone tomorrow morning. Otherwise it's going to be business as usual, right? I would say at this point, the incoming, I suppose, new head of department transportation, I think we'll need to take up the mantle and run with it. We talk to him. Sharon and I, we talk to him. Right? Jay. It's not Fuji Comic. No, it's Jay. Ford Fuji Comic. It's a successor. Jay. Up for confirmation. It'd be a great way for him to start. It would be terrific. Yeah. Okay. So that's Lenia Kea. There's more. And I wanted to add a word to your lexicon. It's resilience, which we talked about in the 10th, because that's, you know, planning for how to recover when it strikes. I mean, what do we do for that? What kind of policy? What kind of statutory framework, necessary do you incorporate for that? A great example in this context is adaptation context, sea level rise context, managed retreat for that lexicon context. Is it something called a rolling setback? Have you heard of that before? You know, we have rules, oftentimes county level rules, but involves lots of different agencies and lots of different levels of government. Rules about how close to the shoreline one can build. And if we recognize that the shoreline is retreating, we should recognize that that distance should change or that point in space should change over time. So rolling setbacks is this type of policy that really allows resilience to happen in coastal development. And is that, do we have that here? Or is that elsewhere? We don't have it universally, but there are instances of it. It's been used actually in specific contexts for specific properties, but it's also in places like Maui they've managed to pass as an overarching policy. So should that be a policy? I mean, is that state legislature, is that the county level on this rolling setback? Primarily a county issue, but because it's in the coastal zone, the state also has a lot to say about it. That raises an interesting point about county leadership these days. They were impressive on the tents, weren't they? It was, and I think it's interesting because with the whole lack of leadership at the national level, you see a lot more international action and a lot more state and local action. So kudos to those in the state government, the creation of our climate task force. I'm sure I don't have the name right, but there's movement at the state level and at the county level. And yeah, at the forum, all four counties were taking a lot of innovative action and I think there's a lot of hope there because we just need to keep experimenting and doing things and seeing what works. Taking action. So what's the difference between policy and action? I see you guys as the source of policy. I see you guys as writing, teaching, coming on shows like this and talking about what the policy should be sort of as a point of nutrition for those who have to digest it and do something about it. So shouldn't the law school, for example, be a source of policy points? Is it a source? Are you already doing that? It's always great to have a law school involved in policy and writing legislation or contributing to policy in some way but I actually think we have really good policies in Hawaii. So given the limited amount of energy that everybody has, I'd rather put it into implementation and execution. That's why I think we're really lacking. I think we have good policies. We have an ambitious energy goal. We have good environmental laws. We have really good environmental laws. So where does the law school fit in the implementation part? First of all, training excellent lawyers who can go out into the community. Those who can write statutes. Yeah, or get involved in counseling businesses or starting counseling startups and it doesn't matter if they go to Bishop Street or to a non-profit or to the legislature. We have them all across the board, but if they're motivated and passionate, which they are about taking their skills and seeing something happen, and actually I would say in the last couple of years, particularly with Richard there and some of our other faculty, we're very oriented toward giving them the skills that they can start taking action. Sending them out in order to save us. Not just write policies. I got it. We actually need to do it. You know, on the way to the show, and we were a couple of minutes behind where we wanted to be, Sharon and I ran into a class which was right outside on 4th Street with their professor from the U.H. School of Architecture. Oh, great. And they all demonstrated, it was really wonderful, a few minutes, they demonstrated their projects to us. And they were so wide-eyed and vital and it was just great to talk to them. Each one had a project and it was all about sustainability, it was all about building a better community. I said to myself, if these guys get distributed around the architectural firms, they will have an effect. So I put this to you, Richard. What is your class like? Can you give us sort of a profile of how these students are thinking about these issues? In the class you taught last year too. I will tell you about a group of folks that I met yesterday for the first time in my clean energy law and policy course. And there is a broad spectrum of folks that are planning to go into commercial development, folks that are planning to go into the nonprofit world. They're full of energy, they're brilliant. I mean, to a person, this class is full of brilliant people. And I convinced them, I hope, in two and a half hours we spent together yesterday that the transition we need to take to solve climate change and the mitigation side of it, it's going to happen over the course of their career. It's a 30-year timeframe. I'm going back to the question you asked, what's our timeline? We have less than 30 years to act, but we will have to have completely reinvented ourselves over the course of the next 30 years. And that's their career. They graduate in May and then things get started. I'm very excited for that group of people, but if they won't do it alone, we need to have the support of everybody. Sure. So what kind of projects were they interested in? Where would you seed them when they go out? When they go out into the world in May? What can you gather as to where they're seeding? Yesterday we talked about the state's clean energy targets. I'm a huge fan. I think that they got that I was a huge fan. And I got 12 critics who came back at me and pointed out all the ways we can fix our clean energy targets to make them more implementable, to make them more actionable. We should have been there. We should have been there. Bring them on to the show. We should also mention, Richard taught a class previously that focused on energy legislation and brought the students down to the legislature. You know, that's really important. See how sausage is made. Yeah, we have Mike Wallerstein from the Public Utilities Commission teaching Public Utilities Law, because the students need to know the nuts and bolts of Public Utilities Law. So we're trying to do more hands-on, you know. And the students know this is a really hot area of the law. Not only are there jobs there, but as Richard said, they get to make a difference. I mean, it's so true. It's within their career that they get to make a difference. That's great. Well, this is a perfect storm. It's double on time. It's a perfect storm for the issue and for them, those students, and for the law school, for that matter. By the way, let me just say, great appointment, good shop. We think so. We're happy with that. We're out of time. It's time for you as a co-host of the program to summarize all of this. Oh, my gosh. Well, first of all, I love what you're doing in the law school. Richard bringing clean energy and really what you're doing. Climate change, adaptation, mitigation, but also training the next generation. Oh, that's so exciting. And really doing what you're doing out in the community and bringing it into the classroom because that's how you get the students very committed to doing good in a bigger way. So I think we need to have the law school back with our students next. And what is the future for us? Because that is our future. So I thank you both very much for coming down and talking about climate change, about energy, clean energy, and hope that we can see and hear from you again and the students. That's a deal. Thank you, Denise. Thank you, Richard. Before me. Before me. See you again soon. Mahalo. Mahalo to you both.