 Welcome to ThinkTech on Spectrum OC16, Hawaii's weekly newscast on things that matter to tech and Hawaii. I'm Jay Fidel. And I'm Elise Anderson. In our show this time, we'll look at hurricanes Laine and Olivia and review the shows we've had in the hurricane season so far. Despite the denial of climate change by the Trump administration, we'll see how these storms connect with climate change and what we can do about it. We've done shows on the subject with experts and guests from Hawaiian Electric, the counties, climate scientists from UH and elsewhere, the border water supply, the National Weather Service, NOAA, the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, and others. And we've learned a lot. Here are segments from some of those shows. On Hawaii, the state of clean energy. On August 15th, we talked with Peter Rasek of Hawaiian Electric about preparation efforts to deal with Hurricane Hector, then approaching Hawaii. We have a brand new Energy Preparedness Handbook, and it's online, or how do I get to this? You know, you ruined my joke, okay? Because the previous version said, bring extra batteries. You know, you have your flashlight, your radio, extra batteries. And so I have a flashlight here, and I have some extra batteries. Is this enough? Well. It actually talks about the solar powered and hand craig, so, you know, good, good job. It's all in here. I mean, it is great. It's what, 70 pages or something. It's really a good guide. You can go online right now to hawaiilelectric.com, MauiElectric.com, HawaiiElectricLate.com. You can download it, or you can call us up and say, send me one, send me some. You know, we, as long as we've got supplies in the box. In Hawaii, the state of clean energy on August 22nd, we talked with Christopher Burgess of the Rocky Mountain Institute about designing hurricane resilient photovoltaic systems and the lessons of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. One module manufacturer with one clamping system to the racks, and the other one is a totally different brand and a totally different mechanism for fastening the modules to the racks. Wow. What a significant difference. Yeah. But let me ask you, is there any chance that any part of this farm was actually producing electricity with this damage, as we see? Yeah. Yeah, actually about a third of it powered back up. Unfortunately though, this is a grid connected solar farm in southern Puerto Rico. And because PREPA was down for so many months, this could not actually produce power for the grid. So that's actually the, you know, that'll happen in Hawaii too with homes that don't have battery storage. Yeah. They cannot, they cannot island without the electricity being on, having the grid powered up because the inverters have to sense voltage from the grid in order to operate. In community matters, on August 29th, we got an update on the major flooding and recovery efforts taking place in Kauai from Mayor Bernard Carvalho. Of course, the flash flood warning that we were in last, yesterday, we're all done as of last night at 8.20, so there's no flash flood warning here in Kauai, everything was canceled. But the next thing, as of this morning, we assembled as a team, now that the rain is subsided and it's time to get boots on the ground and do our damage assessments. I wanted them to get out as soon as possible so we can address the issues accordingly. And then of course, seeing what kind of equipment, assets we need, and then working with community to rebuild as soon as can. People are still, you know, going through what happened in April. And unfortunately, a lot of the same areas that got damaged in April got severely damaged one more time. So we're kind of going through that along with other parts of our island right now and doing an assessment of the damage. In research in Minoa on August 22nd, we talked with Dennis Wang of the UHC Grant College and John Bravinder of NOAA about Hurricane Lane and what we can learn from it in terms of preparation for the next hurricane. So how do you find out? What will you tell me? How will you tell me that now I have to leave and seek shelter outside my house? That's, we rely a lot on emergency management community and the media to communicate those messages. So we work very closely with the state and county EMs for decisions like that, for opening shelters, which shelters, evacuation shelters open, any areas that would need evacuation. We provide, well, we provide to the public as well. Anybody can see the forecast that we make. And then the emergency management officials will go through and decide, you know, based on their local knowledge, which areas are most susceptible to flooding, to other hazards such as wind or even surge along the coastline. In likable science on August 31st, we talked with Jeffrey McCutchen of the University of Connecticut about breakthroughs in desalination technology to extract essential drinking water from the ocean. As more people exist on our planet and as those people want to live a higher standard of living, their own water footprint, their indirect water use, becomes quite substantial in comparison to where we as humanity was just 50 years ago. One of the unique aspects of this technique, yes, we can control things like thickness or make a smoother film. And we might get to that in a little bit, why that is. But one of the really value added propositions of this technique is the fact that we use very little chemicals to do it. Because we're not relying on big baths of liquid and large amounts of waste. We're just, whatever forms in the membrane, we are depositing ourselves. Which means we estimate we can use probably 95% less volume of chemicals to make the saline not a membrane area as conventional techniques. In Hawaii, the state of clean energy on September 5th, we talked with Robert Merida of the Honolulu Board of Water Supply about disaster preparedness and efforts to keep drinking water supplies available in times of hurricanes and other disasters. You know, water is life. That's our theme. It's important to sustain your life as well as to develop, to grow your foods and everything else. So it's a critical piece as part of the overall emergency management plan for the state is to ensure the continued delivery of water. As long as Hawaiian Electric is able to deliver power, water should basically be in good shape during a disaster. It's when we separate ourselves. If we lose power for an extended period, short periods, we can tolerate that. But extended periods cause a lot of heartache and challenges. In research in Manoa on September 6th, we talked about forecasting and reducing vulnerability to climate change hazards in the Pacific Islands with Rashid Choudhury of the Pacific Enso Applications Climate Center and Joe Brinkley of NOAA. Enso refers to El Nino Southern Oscillation. Sometimes all models, all models doesn't really correspond very well with the observed data, with the findings. In that case, we have to use some other techniques to avoid some models, to take something or to disregard something like that. The models are artificial intelligence. You look at it and you learn from the way it moves. Yes. So you're not necessarily starting from the ground up because you know what happened here, you know what happened there. Now you can figure out what's likely to happen. And that's the difference. I mean, that's the difference of the Pacific Enso Applications Climate Center because we have an opportunity to get raw data and we have a chance to verify the findings, not like others. Because what I say today, this goes to the field, those stakeholders within the next 15 days, and they will reuse it. Within two months, they will let me know whether I was right or wrong. In Community Matters on September 7th, we talked about what we can learn from Hurricane Lane with Carl Kim, Director of the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, and Michael Iwashta, Meteorologist at the Center. Part of what we do is we focus on preparedness and the things that we can do and we can actually improve our detection, warning alert systems, improve our public communications. We can try to make our buildings stronger and more robust, but we also need to work on recovery planning, and that's a big focus of our National Disaster Preparedness Training Center. And so we've been working on recovery planning, not just here in Hawaii, but in the Gulf Coast, in Puerto Rico, in other communities that have experienced these disasters. That's interesting because some agencies, like Sea Grant College up there at U-Age, they're focused on how to hold your house together, how to make structural improvements so it doesn't come apart in high winds, and you're in a different place on this. Well, Sea Grant is doing some more interesting work, too, on reconstruction as well, so they have an interesting project. In Energy 808, the cutting edge, on September 6th, we talked with Mina Morita, former chair of the PUC, who has been involved in recovery efforts after the floods in Kauai about the status of those efforts and what we have learned from the floods and the cleanup. You know, having more robust planning efforts as we move forward, and then on the individual end, you know, people understanding their responsibility to be able to rebuild in a way that makes them less vulnerable, and to be more vigilant, you know, in the April flood, I think we inventoryed something like 297 vehicles that were lost and... You mean swept away? Damaged by flooding. Yeah. Whether they were, you know, in garages that were susceptible to flooding or on the roads that were susceptible to flooding. In Community Matters, on September 12th, we talked with Paul Klink of the American Red Cross about the preparations then being made to deal with Hurricane Olivia. Red Cross is more, you know, tending to people, sheltering is our primary function, and that sheltering, believe it or not, is not just, you know, welcoming people in and sending them on a piece of, you know, on a chair or on a cot or anything. Like, actually, at evacuation centers, we don't even have cops, except for staff like me that sleep over night. But what happens is you're really providing what's called psychological first aid, because these people, no one's born with a manual on how to deal with disasters, like storms like the one we're having right now. So being there to lend a helping hand and two open ears and just listen to how they feel and what they're going through so they feel heard, they understand you didn't just listen to listen, but listen to understand what they're going through and have some empathy or sympathy if you haven't experienced what they've gone through. In another Community Matters show on September 12th, we talked with Representative Joy San Bonaventura and Big Island farmer Steve Sacala about their efforts to deal with the recent storms and eruptions on the Big Island. What people don't realize, I mean, because the island is so big, how much percentage-wise the lava has inundated. This current eruption has inundated lower Puna area. It's like geographically taking out all of Kailua and Kaneohe. Okay, it is partially populated, so it's about 800 homes. People who thought that they bought lava insurance find out that Lloyds of London is unwilling to pay them. Oh yes, we've read about that. That's terrible. Especially at the premiums you pay. We got the hurricane lane or topical storm lane. We find out that the people who bought hurricane insurance aren't going to be able to get money for the flooding because that requires flood insurance. In research in Manoa on September 12th, we talked with Dennis Wan of the UH Sea Grant College to compare Hurricane Olivia and Hurricane Florence in the Atlantic and their relationship to climate change. People got to realize that there is actual risk out there and they can't always count on these things missing out. Let me just pin one thing down, Dennis. It's no question that the exacerbation of this weather is due to climate change, right? Well, it's hard to say. There are so many scientists. Definitely sea surface temperatures are warmer because there's always a question. Does climate change lead to greater frequency and magnitude of storms? Intuitively you would say yes because the sea surface temperatures are warmer but a lot of scientists also say when there's climate change there's more wind shear. Remember wind shear is what tore lane apart? So there's just so many factors involved. In Where the Drone Leads on September 13th, we talked with drone experts George Purdy and John Johnson about the capabilities of drone technology for public safety including their use in prediction and recovery from hurricanes and other disasters. We should look at what's in our basic response plans and use it as our foundation and figure out how the community works and what helps is that we come from the same community and the thing is every location we have members that live in these communities that can go home and educate their communities. So actually using this thing two ways. You're using it to provide a means and a method by which new technologies such as UAS can come into the picture. You're also using it as a reverse flow to get information out to the community about how the coordinated joint operating system works in disaster response. In likable science on September 14th, we talked with Dolan Eversall of the UH Sea Grant College about coastal management and the need for collective effort to maintain, protect and preserve the beach in Waikiki, a critical asset for Hawaii in the face of enhanced risks from climate change. There's a general agreement within kind of the management team that we don't want to pursue any of these options that the community won't support. So we don't want to be in a kind of a contentious situation. We want to find the path of least resistance and go forward with that. And most of that involves bringing sand into the beach. And in some cases we may have to build some new structures. One example of that is there is approvals already in place and probably construction in about a year to a year and a half for the replacement for the Royal Hawaiian growing which serves as a really critical growing for Waikiki and it's that curve growing in between the Royal Hawaiian hotel and the Sheraton Waikiki. It's 90 years old, so it's showing signs of its age and starting to show... They do break down, yeah. They can fail catastrophically. In this case, there's concern that it could fail at any moment. These are only samplings, however, from our recent shows. To see these shows in their entirety, go to thinktechhawaii.com or youtube.com slash thinktechhawaii. Despite President Trump's denial of climate change, along with Republicans now in Congress, we are going beyond the tipping point or possibly the point of no return in dealing with global climate change. Sea levels are rising all over the world. Glaciers and the ice caps are melting and of most immediate concern to Hawaii, we are threatened by increasingly more dangerous weather. Climate change is here. It has clearly arrived. It's having a direct effect on us and it's a threat which is now being realized. It's all coming true just as Al Gore warned in an inconvenient truth decades ago. All we can do going forward is to slow it down to the extent still possible and take steps to protect ourselves from its dreadful consequences. The number and intensity of hurricanes in the Pacific has undeniably increased in recent years. This is not unlike hurricanes in the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and Asia, showing again that climate change is changing global weather patterns and extreme weather is becoming more destructive. The story is not so much that there is a storm here or there, but that there are many of them and their number and intensity reflect a dynamic global pattern we should be increasingly concerned about. Given these changes, there is a growing number of academic, nonprofit, and state and federal agencies being organized to learn about climate change and extreme weather and to inform the public what is happening and what we can do to prepare for and recover from these events. It starts with protecting your home or business from being damaged or destroyed in what could be a Category 3, 4, or even a Category 5 storm. It also involves stockpiling the food, water, and supplies you need to deal with these things and the disruptions of recovering from them. Being prepared could be a matter of life or death. We also need to understand how these hurricanes are generated, where they come from, how fast they come toward Hawaii, how they can change their course, and how they are affected by wind shear and trade winds. Hawaii has been lucky in recent years. The problem is that luck is only chance and doesn't last forever, particularly when next year will be an El Nino year. These storms are likely to be worse in El Nino years. Some say that Hawaii is so small, there's nothing we can do about global carbon emissions. But that's not true. We can't give up. The whole world has to do what it can. And Hawaii as an environmental leader has to set a standard for others to follow. It's what we are. Sure, bad weather comes and goes, and we still have beautiful sunny trade wind days. But science in the future require us to see and predict the changing pattern so we know how they will affect our lives. It's a time for a new awareness and new planning. Everyone needs to think what they would do when Hawaii gets a direct hit from one of these storms, which is inevitable. And what game plan you should have in place to save your family, your business, your home. It won't be pretty and no one will be exempt from these risks. This is no time for complacency. We must all be learning about climate change and its effects. ThinkTech is committed to its mission of raising public awareness. So you can bet we'll continue to follow these events and their effects on our community. And now let's check out our ThinkTech schedule of events going forward. ThinkTech broadcasts its talk shows live on the Internet from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. Then we broadcast our earlier shows all night long and on the weekends. And some people listen to them all night long and on the weekends. If you missed a show or if you want to replay or share any of our shows, they're all archived on demand on ThinkTechHawaii.com and YouTube. For our audio stream, go to ThinkTechHawaii.com slash audio. And we post all our shows as podcasts on iTunes. Visit ThinkTechHawaii.com for our weekly calendar and live stream on YouTube links. Or better yet, sign up on our email list to get our daily email advisories. ThinkTech has a high-tech green screen studio at Pioneer Plaza. If you want to see it or be part of our live audience, or if you want to participate in our shows, contact shows at ThinkTechHawaii.com. If you want to pose a question or make a comment during a show, call 808-374-2014 and help us raise public awareness on ThinkTech. Go ahead, give us a thumbs up on YouTube or send us a tweet at ThinkTechHI. We'd like to know how you feel about the issues and events that affect our lives in these islands and in this country. We'd like to stay in touch with you and we'd like you to stay in touch with us. Let's think together. Aloha, I'm Jay Fidel. And I'm Elise Anderson. We're from ThinkTechHawaii. And we're kicking off our annual COSVOX fundraising campaign. We're calling this year's campaign ThinkTech United. Please visit thinktechunited.cosvox.com where you can create your own ThinkTech United account and make a donation. You can also use this platform to ask your friends, family members, and colleagues to make donations and raise money for ThinkTech. As you know, ThinkTech is a good cause doing good work in citizen journalism. In these times, it's more important than ever. And to keep things going, we need your support. Please help us by participating, donating, and spreading the word. Let's keep ThinkTech United. I'm Jay Fidel. And I'm Elise Anderson. Mahalo. We'll be right back to wrap up this week's edition of ThinkTech. But first, we want to thank our underwriters. The Atherton Family Foundation. The Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education. Collateral Analytics. The Cook Foundation. The Hawaii Council of Associations of Apartment Owners. Hawaii Energy. The Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. The Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology. Hawaiian Electric Companies. The High Tech Development Corporation. Galen Ho of BAE Systems. Integrated Security Technologies. Kameha Meha Schools. Dwayne Kurisu. Calamon Lee and the Friends of ThinkTech. MW Group Limited. The Scheiler Family Foundation. The Sydney Stern Memorial Trust. The Volo Foundation. Yuriko J. Sugimura. Okay Elise, that wraps up this week's edition of ThinkTech. Remember, you can watch ThinkTech on Spectrum OC16 several times every week. Can't get enough of it, just like Elise does. For additional times, check out oc16.tv. For more opportunities on ThinkTech, visit thinktechhawaii.com. Be a guest or a host, a producer or an intern, and help us reach and have an impact on Hawaii. Thanks so much for being part of our ThinkTech family and for supporting our open discussion of tech, energy, diversification and global awareness in Hawaii. And of course, the ongoing search for innovation wherever we can find it. You can watch this show throughout the week and tune in next Sunday evening for our next important ThinkTech episode. And I'm Elise Anderson. Aloha everyone.