A peculiar feature of the human condition is that a society in distress will call forth intellectual witch-doctors to put on a colorful show that distracts the supposedly thinking class from the insoluble quandaries that portend serious trouble ahead.
This feature is on display these days in the person of freelance space pioneer Elon Musk. He intends to establish a human colony on Mars of one million people by 2040.
Musk, who is also developer of the Tesla line of electric cars and businesses that make solar-electric gear and batteries, has tested a series of space vehicles, most recently last week’s celebrated launch of his Falcon Heavy Rocket, said to be the most powerful in the world.
It is just the precursor of the soon-to-come colossus Musk calls the BFR (“Big Fucking Rocket”) that will convey as many as 200 people at a time to their new home on the Red Planet.
NPR reporter Ari Shapiro was rhapsodizing about this “Space-X” project last week on the airwaves, lending it the media stamp-of-approval.
And since NPR is a major news source for the US thinking class especially, you can be sure this meme of colonizing Mars is now embedded in the brains of the Pareto distribution (“the law of the vital few”) who affect to be thought leaders in this land.
There’s an old gag about the space race of yore that goes something like this (trigger warning to the ethnically hyper-sensitive):
The UN convenes a General Assembly session on space travel. The ambassadors of various nations are asked to talk about their space projects. The Russians and the Americans tick off their prior accomplishments and announce plans to explore the planets. Finally, the ambassador from Poland takes his turn at the rostrum. “We intend to land a man on the sun,” he declares. There is a great hubbub in the assembly, cries of “say, what…?” and “wait a minute now….”
The Secretary-General turns to the Polish ambassador and says, “Your scientists must be out of their minds. It’s six thousand degrees up there! How can you possibly land a spacecraft on it?” A hush falls over the assembly. The Polish ambassador looks completely relaxed and serene. “We are going to do it at night!” he announces triumphantly.
NPR’s Shapiro interviewed blogger Tim Urban of theWait But Why blog for the segment on Musk’s space program. Here’s a sample of their conversation:
URBAN: If humanity is, you know, like a precious photo album you’ve got, the Earth is like a hard drive you have it on. And any sane person would obviously back it up to a second hard drive. That’s kind of the idea here – is all of our eggs are currently on one planet. And if we can build a self-sustaining civilization on Mars, it’s much harder for humanity to go extinct.
SHAPIRO: And a million people is about how many people he thinks it would take for a population to be self-sustaining.
URBAN: Right, self-sustaining meaning if something catastrophic happened on Earth during some world war or something that has to do with, you know, a really bad-case scenario with climate change, maybe some – I don’t know – the species went extinct on Earth but ships stopped coming with supplies and anything else, a million people is enough that Mars’ population would be fine.
Not to put too fine a point on it, I never heard so much fucking nonsense in my life. There’s absolutely nothing that might make Mars a “sustainable” habitat for human beings, or probably any other form of Earthly life. The journey alone would destroy human bodies.
If you think that living in Honolulu is expensive, with most daily needs of the population shipped or flown in, imagine what it would be like sending a cargo of provisions (Doritos? Pepperoni sticks? Mountain Dew? Fabreeze?) to a million “consumers” up on Mars. Or do you suppose the colonists will “print” their food, water, and other necessities?
Elon Musk’s ventures have reportedly vacuumed in around $5 billion in federal subsidies. Mr. Musk is doing a fine job of keeping his benefactors entertained. Americans are still avid for adventures in space, where just about every other movie takes place.
I suppose it’s because they take us away from the awful conundrums of making a go of it here on Earth, a planet that humans were exquisitely evolved for (or designed for, if you will), and which we are in the process of rendering uninhabitable for ourselves and lots of other creatures.
This is our home. Can we talk about the necessary adjustments and arrangements we have to make in order to continue the human project here? Just based on our performance on this blue planet, we are not qualified to infect other parts of the solar system.
[IB Publisher's note: We think the state would do better to prepare its harbors for future ship travel between islands and to mainland sites.]
All Nippon Airways wants to fly the world’s largest aircraft to Honolulu, and the state of Hawaii is on board.
The Hawaii Department of Transportation plans to spend up to $30 million to outfit two gates at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport to serve the world’s largest commercial jumbo jet.
Officials believe accommodating All Nippon Airways’ huge plane may be worth the expense, however, due to potential increases in airport revenue and tourism.
The double-decker Airbus A380 has an average capacity of about 500 passengers, while the Japanese airline’s current planes flying to Honolulu carry up to 216 passengers. The Hawaii Tourism Authority estimates that Japanese tourists spend an average of $242.60 a day while they’re in the islands.
To accommodate the A380, the transportation department will expand a seating area in the international terminal, create a food court and build additional jet bridges at two gates to give passengers access to and from the plane’s second level.
Outside the terminal, the aircraft parking area will be reconfigured to accommodate the A380’s 80-meter wingspan. Baggage areas will also be expanded to accommodate the bigger load of passengers.
The improvements, which should begin in 2018 and finish in 2019, are part of a larger project to update the airport, said transportation department spokesman Tim Sakahara.
Image above: All Nippon Airways painted the A380 to look like Hawaiian sea turtle (honu). From Civil Beat article.
All Nippon Airways’ “Flying Honu,” one of the airlines’ three A380s, will start flying to Honolulu in 2019. The plane’s fuselage will be wrapped with an image of Hawaii’s most famous reptile, the sea turtle. The plane is powered by four Rolls Royce engines and has a maximum takeoff weight of 1.2 million pounds.
The transportation department has put out a bid for the gate project and has not received any responses yet. Sakahara said that the final cost may fluctuate depending on contract negotiations.
Honolulu will be the ninth U.S. airport to have facilities capable of docking the A380. The others include Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle and John F. Kennedy in New York City.
Bringing The Honu To Hawaii
Gov. David Ige met with All Nippon Airways officials to discuss flying the A380 to Hawaii during his trip to Japan in late 2015.
Cindy McMillan, a spokeswoman for the governor’s office, said that ANA executives promised to commit more planes to Hawaii if the state could make the improvements to service the ANA’s aircraft. Shortly after Ige’s visit, ANA placed an order for three A380s, the first requisitions Airbus received for the giant planes since 2013.
Sakahara said the governor then asked the transportation department to start studying what it would take to upgrade the airport to accommodate the plane.
“This is a strategically important move for Hawaii,” McMillan said. She said that in the future, other carriers may use the gates to fly in double-deckers, giving residents more travel options.
No other air carrier has expressed interest in flying the A380 to Honolulu so far, Sakahara said. Of the 20-plus airlines with service to Honolulu, only Korean Air and Qantas, which serves Australia, currently have the planes in their fleets.
Boeing recently acknowledged at the Paris Air Show that it sees no future in passenger travel for its version of the A380, the 747. It intends to make new 747s only for cargo transportation.
Though sales for smaller, twin-engine craft have trumped the A380 in recent years, Michael Boyd, president of the Colorado-based Boyd Group, which provides aviation consultation, said the gate upgrades will be worth the cost.
“Honolulu is the perfect market for the A380,” Boyd said. “It’s almost an imperative. Honolulu is facing a lot of competition around the world for the Japanese dollar.”
ANA currently flies 14 to 16 flights per week between Japan and Honolulu on Boeing 767s, which carry up to 216 passengers. The airline plans to replace its 767s with the new 787, which holds 240 people, on Honolulu routes even before it starts flying A380s to Oahu.
On average, the Honolulu flights are 90 percent full, airline executives said earlier this year, the Japan Times reported.
ANA has not said whether the A380s will replace smaller planes for all of its Honolulu flights once the airport renovations are completed. Either way, the A380 should increase the net amount of tourism dollars spent in Hawaii, said Eric Takahata, managing director for Hawaii Tourism Japan.
He said the total number of passengers arriving on ANA’s A380s aren’t as significant as the greater amount of money those passengers will spend. Airlines are reducing their economy classes to add more first class, business and premium economy passengers.
“If we can tax the infrastructure less but maintain or increase spending, that’s what we are aiming toward,” Takahata said.
ANA representatives could not be reached for comment.
Paying For The Upgrades
The state’s capital improvements budget allows the transportation department to spend up to $30 million just on improving the two gates.
Sakahara said the final cost of the project will depend on the construction contracts.
The Legislature approved a total of $446.6 million in capital improvements at the airport over the next two years.
The department will pay for the improvements to accommodate the A380s through bonds financed with airport revenue.
Wesley Machida, director for the Hawaii State Department of Finance, said that most of the airport’s $353 million in revenue from 2016 came from concessions, landing fees and rentals.
The airport brought in $145.5 million from vendors like car rental companies and restaurants. Airlines paid $66 million in usage fees (companies with heavier planes like the A380 would need to pay more, because the charges are based on weight).
Also, $115.4 million came from rentals of aeronautical facilities such as hangars. Non-aeronautical rentals such as storage for goods brought in $15.8 million.
Before the transportation department makes decisions on airport improvement projects, Sakahara said it communicates with airport tenants, as well as the Airlines Committee of Hawaii, which includes representatives of 20 airlines that operate in the state.
In regards to the A380 gate project, the department “wouldn’t have made these improvements unless an airline needs these improvements.”
It’s not yet clear how much additional revenue the airport will receive from A380 flights.
However, what the plane carries may be more of an economic advantage for Hawaii than the plane itself.
Each year, about 1.5 million tourists fly from Japan to Hawaii, and that amount is expected to increase to 1.6 million by the time ANA’s Flying Honu starts touching down in 2019. But because ANA hasn’t indicated how many A380 routes will fly to Honolulu, there are no specific estimates yet of the plane’s impact on tourism.
Tourists from Japan produce about $400 million in revenue for Hawaii’s tourism industry each year.
Waikiki could get the highest tides in more than on hundred years this weekend,
The combination of high lunar tides, a south swell and ongoing sea level rise is giving Hawaii a preview of what’s to come with climate change.
With record high tides expected through the weekend, Hawaii is getting a preview of what could become the new normal with sea level rise.
The ever-increasing effect of global warming is combining with some of the year’s highest lunar tides and a south swell to produce what are predicted to be the highest ocean levels in 112 years of record-keeping. Volunteers for the University of Hawaii’s Sea Grant College Program are taking to the coasts to document the effects.
Matthew Gonser, an extension agent with Sea Grant College who works with the volunteers, said this documentation will help make predictions for what the baseline sea level could look like in the future, among other research endeavors.
He was working with the volunteers in front of the Outrigger Canoe Club in Waikiki on Thursday afternoon.
Predictions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have tides rising around 2.4 feet higher than average through the weekend. The average itself has been increasing slowly due to sea level rise tied to climate change, and Gonser said the result over the next couple of days could actually exceed the predictions.
May’s king tides mark the third documentation session for the volunteer group. While their photos are important to visualize and track data, the community conversations that follow will be perhaps the most significant result, Gonser said.
“We hope to engage in this conversation — that is actually really difficult to have — about how rising sea levels impact our locale,” he said. “You can’t ignore it.”
Factors are converging to create the epic tides, said Philip Thompson, associate director of the University of Hawaii’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. They include a recent increase in slow-moving, rotating and churning bodies of water, called ocean eddies, and the lasting effects of the 2015-2016 El Nino.
Meanwhile, climate change is producing rising sea levels with no end in sight.
This poses an issue for the coastal areas in Hawaii, in particular, because washed-out beaches hurt tourism and the environment.
“Maintaining our beaches and nourishing them will be an ongoing struggle,” Thompson said.
The Citizen Scientists also plan to document the next expected king tides June 23-24 and July 21 and 22.
Image above: Flooding on Ahua Street near Keehi Lagoon Beach Park in Honolulu during a king tide Wednesday. From original article.
Image above: Bryanna Tunai, right, watched a city crew remove cardboard and pallets from Kuwili Street in Iwilei on Monday. From original article.
The smell of urine emanated from the sidewalks of Iwilei on Monday as the city’s homeless enforcement team returned to once again break down makeshift shelters built out of cardboard, tarps and wooden pallets — one of hundreds of sweeps that have taken place since the cleanup crew was created more than three years ago.
Monday through Friday the so-called SPO/SNO Enforcement Team discards — and stores — tons of personal belongings from Oahu’s homeless encampments at a cost to the city of about $15,000 a week.
The team got its inelegant name from the two city ordinances it enforces: the stored property ordinance and the sidewalk nuisance ordinance. One enables the removal of private property on city land, and the other keeps sidewalks clear.
But, as the residents and businesses of Iwilei have learned, the Monday sweeps only clear the area for the inevitable return of the area’s homeless.
Karen Manuluata, 25, and her boyfriend, Rick Tataishi, 34, spent the night on state-owned Nimitz Highway, just around the corner from where the SPO/SNO Enforcement Team was clearing city-owned Sumner Street.
“In two months we’ve been swept five times,” Manuluata said. “I’m not used to this. It’s hard. We have nowhere to go.”
The SPO/SNO Enforcement Team represents what Mayor Kirk Caldwell calls “compassionate enforcement” to encourage homeless people such as Manuluata to give up life on the street and instead move into a shelter or the city’s nascent Hale Mauliola community on Sand Island.
The team has been operating since January 2013 as part of Caldwell’s plan to deal with Oahu’s intractable homeless problem and respond to complaints from businesses and neighbors.
In communities such as Iwilei, where complaints connected to the homeless have increased in the last few months as more of them move in, the team’s Monday sweeps have become an unwelcome but expected part of life for the area’s homeless.
On monday about a dozen people who spent the night on the sidewalks of Kuwili Street were already packed and on the move to another neighborhood when the team rolled in with dump trucks and police escorts around 8 a.m. to find only two remaining encampments on either end of the street.
While others were still walking out of Kuwili Street, Bryanna Tunai, 21, sat in a beach chair outside her structure eating a cookie as the enforcement team’s dump truck noisily crushed pallets, plywood and the remains of someone else’s encampment.
“We have rights,” Tunai said.
Tunai is a veteran of the street who, like untold others, has grown both accustomed to — and weary of — the incessant sweeps that some say merely push homeless populations into neighboring communities.
“I’ve been out here since I was 16,” Tunai said. “The sweeps don’t faze me. We go back and forth between here and Aala Park.”
The work is not pleasant for the seven-person crew, which was joined by a separate, three-person “roving park patrol” in March 2015 to do the same work in city parks.
The crews sometimes work 17-hour shifts in order to clear city streets and enforce park bans that begin at 10 p.m., said Ross Sasamura, director and chief engineer of the city’s Department of Facility Maintenance.
In addition to harassment from the homeless people they remove, the crews are always on the lookout for hypodermic needles and “toilet buckets” filled with human urine and feces.
“When they leave, they leave their trash for us to pick up,” Sasamura said. “As a result of the sweeps, they’ve added mobility to their list of skills. Some of them scale down on the items they keep with them, and others find wheeled objects to help them transfer.”
Sasamura’s crew spent six months in the fall methodically breaking down the entrenched Kakaako homeless encampment. As it grew into a major safety and public health problem, the encampment crystallized Oahu’s need to deal with what has become the country’s highest per-capita rate of homelessness.
In the aftermath of the Kakaako sweeps, the city in January settled a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii that alleged it failed to provide notice of the sweeps and destroyed belongings rather than store them to be reclaimed.
Sasamura said he was barred from discussing the terms of the settlement.
But he said the enforcement team now gives homeless people a 30-minute heads-up before sweeps commence. Those whose possessions are taken get a claim ticket for their items, which must be stored for at least 30 days in an undisclosed location in Halawa.
The city also announces the next day’s sweeps on its website by 3 p.m. each day, Sasamura said.
In a statement, Vanessa Chong, executive director of the ACLU of Hawaii, said, “City practices and policies during sweeps have been changed as a result of the lawsuit,” and the ACLU “continues to monitor city activities in the removal of private belongings on city property.”
Philip Richardson, president of Current Affairs, an event-planning business on Pine Street, said the ongoing sweeps are not a permanent solution, but they’re necessary to keep the neighborhood safe.
“They need to focus on picking up the carts, otherwise the homeless just rebuild again,” Richardson said. “But there is a marked difference between when they conduct the sweeps and when they do not in terms of violence, drugs and overall safety. If it were to discontinue, I would be extremely concerned.”
Image above: Climatologist James Hansen on the Eleuthera coastal ridge on Nov. 22, 2015, in Eleuthera, Bahamas. Photo by Charles Ommanney. From original article.
An influential group of scientists led by James Hansen, the former NASA scientist often credited with having drawn the first major attention to climate change in 1988 congressional testimony, has published a dire climate study that suggests the impact of global warming will be quicker and more catastrophic than generally envisioned.
The research invokes collapsing ice sheets, violent megastorms and even the hurling of boulders by giant waves in its quest to suggest that even 2 degrees Celsius of global warming above pre-industrial levels would be far too much. Hansen has called it the most important work he has ever done.
The sweeping paper, 52 pages in length and with 19 authors, draws on evidence from ancient climate change or “paleo-climatology,” as well as climate experiments using computer models and some modern observations. Calling it a “paper” really isn’t quite right — it’s actually a synthesis of a wide range of old, and new, evidence.
“I think almost everybody who’s really familiar with both paleo and modern is now very concerned that we are approaching, if we have not passed, the points at which we have locked in really big changes for young people and future generations,” Hansen said in an interview.
The research, appearing Tuesday in the open-access journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics,has had a long and controversial path to life, having first appeared as a “discussion paper” in the same journal, subject to live, online peer review — a novel but increasingly influential form of scientific publishing.
Hansen first told the news media about the research last summer, before this process was completed, leading to criticism from some journalists and fellow scientists that he might be jumping the gun.
What ensued was a high-profile debate, both because of the dramatic claims and Hansen’s formidable reputation. And his numerous co-authors, including Greenland and Antarctic ice experts and a leader of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, were nothing to be sniffed at.
After record downloads for the study and an intense public review process, a revised version of the paper has now been accepted, according to both Hansen and Barbara Ferreira, media and communications manager for the European Geophysical Union, which publishes Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Indeed, the article is now freely readable on the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics website.
The paper, according to Ferreira, was subject to “major revisions in terms of organisation, title and conclusions.” Those came in response to criticisms that can all be read publicly at the journal’s website. The paper also now has two additional authors.
Most notably, perhaps, the editorial process led to the removal of the use of the phrase “highly dangerous,” in the paper’s title, to describe warming the planet by 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The original paper’s title was “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 °C global warming is highly dangerous.” The final title is “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 °C global warming could be dangerous.”
But nonetheless, James Hansen’s climate catastrophe scenario now takes its place in the official scientific literature relatively intact. So let’s rehearse that scenario, again, for the record.
Hansen and his colleagues think that major melting of Greenland and Antarctica can not only happen quite fast — leading to as much as several meters of sea level rise in the space of a century, depending on how quickly melt rates double — but that this melting will have dramatic climate change consequences, beyond merely raising sea levels.
That’s because, they postulate, melting will cause a “stratification” of the polar oceans. What this means is that it will trap a pool of cold, fresh meltwater atop the ocean surface, with a warmer ocean layer beneath.
We have actually seen a possible hint of this with the anomalously cold “blob” of ocean water off the southern coast of Greenland, which some have attributed to Greenland’s melting.
Indeed, shortly before the new paper’s publication, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released new recent data on the globe’s temperature that certainly bears a resemblance to what Hansen is talking about.
For not only was the globe at a record warmth overall over the last three months, but it also showed anomalous cool patches in regions that Hansen suspects are being caused by ice melt – below Greenland, and also off the tip of the Antarctic peninsula.
What ensued was a high-profile debate, both because of the dramatic claims and Hansen’s formidable reputation. And his numerous co-authors, including Greenland and Antarctic ice experts and a leader of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, were nothing to be sniffed at.
After record downloads for the study and an intense public review process, a revised version of the paper has now been accepted, according to both Hansen and Barbara Ferreira, media and communications manager for the European Geophysical Union, which publishes Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Indeed, the article is now freely readable on the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics website.
The paper, according to Ferreira, was subject to “major revisions in terms of organisation, title and conclusions.” Those came in response to criticisms that can all be read publicly at the journal’s website. The paper also now has two additional authors.
Most notably, perhaps, the editorial process led to the removal of the use of the phrase “highly dangerous,” in the paper’s title, to describe warming the planet by 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The original paper’s title was “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 °C global warming is highly dangerous.” The final title is “Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 °C global warming could be dangerous.”
But nonetheless, James Hansen’s climate catastrophe scenario now takes its place in the official scientific literature relatively intact. So let’s rehearse that scenario, again, for the record.
Hansen and his colleagues think that major melting of Greenland and Antarctica can not only happen quite fast — leading to as much as several meters of sea level rise in the space of a century, depending on how quickly melt rates double — but that this melting will have dramatic climate change consequences, beyond merely raising sea levels.
That’s because, they postulate, melting will cause a “stratification” of the polar oceans. What this means is that it will trap a pool of cold, fresh meltwater atop the ocean surface, with a warmer ocean layer beneath. We have actually seen a possible hint of this with the anomalously cold “blob” of ocean water off the southern coast of Greenland, which some have attributed to Greenland’s melting.
Indeed, shortly before the new paper’s publication, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released new recent data on the globe’s temperature that certainly bears a resemblance to what Hansen is talking about.
For not only was the globe at a record warmth overall over the last three months, but it also showed anomalous cool patches in regions that Hansen suspects are being caused by ice melt – below Greenland, and also off the tip of the Antarctic peninsula.
Stratification, the key idea in the new paper, means that warm ocean water would potentially reach the base of ice sheets that sit below sea level, melting them from below (and causing more ice melt and thus, stratification).
It also means, in Hansen’s paper, a slowdown or even eventual shutdown of the overturning circulation in the Atlantic ocean, due to too much freshening in the North Atlantic off and around Greenland, and also a weakening of another overturning circulation in the Southern Ocean.
This, in turn, causes cooling in the North Atlantic region, even as global warming creates a warmer equatorial region. This growing north-south temperature differential, in the study, drives more intense mid-latitude cyclones, or storms.
The study suggests such storms may kick up gigantic oceanic waves, which may even be capable of feats such as hurling boulders in some locations, not unlike the huge rocks seen on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera, which I visited with Hansen and his co-author, geologist Paul Hearty, in November.
These rocks play a key role in the new paper, just as they did in the original study draft. Indeed, long before the current paper, Hearty had documented, in peer-reviewed publications, that Eleuthera’s rocks appear to have come from the ocean and to have been lifted high up onto a coastal ridge.
This appears to have happened during a past warm period, the Eemian, some 120,000 years ago, when the planet was only slightly warmer than today but seas were far higher — but the idea is that something like it could happen again.
The paper contains many ideas and departures, but the key one is its suggestion of the possibility of greater sea level rise in this century than forecast by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“The models that were run for the IPCC report did not include ice melt,” Hansen said at a news conference regarding the new paper Monday. “And we also conclude that most models, ours included, have excessive small scale mixing, and that tends to limit the effect of this freshwater lens on the ocean surface from melting of Greenland and Antarctica.”
There is a great deal at stake. Hansen has cited the paper in court proceedings in a case playing out in Oregon, where a series of young plaintiffs, including his granddaughter Sophie, are suing the United States for violating their constitutional rights by allowing fossil fuel burning.
While scientists will have to digest the new version of the paper, when the initial draft paper was released, at the website of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, it prompted both scientific praise and also major skepticism.
David Archer, a geoscientist at the University of Chicago and a reviewer for the first round of the paper, called it “another Hansen masterwork of scholarly synthesis, modeling virtuosity, and insight, with profound implications.” But Peter Thorne, another official reviewer and a climate researcher with the National University of Ireland Maynooth, wrote that “it is far from certain that the results contended shall match what will happen in the real-world.” Thorne also expressed his “personal discomfort at the paper being openly and actively publicized before the discussion period is complete.”
Michael Mann, a Pennsylvania State University climate scientist familiar with the original study, said: “Near as I can tell, the issues that caused me concern originally still remain in the revised manuscript.
Namely, the projected amounts of meltwater seem unphysically large, and the ocean component of their model doesn’t resolve key wind-driven current systems (e.g. the Gulf Stream) which help transport heat poleward.
That makes northern hemisphere temperatures in their study too sensitive to changes in the Atlantic meridional overturning ocean circulation,” the scientific name for the ocean circulation in the Atlantic that, the study suggests, could shut down.
However, another Penn State researcher, glaciologist Richard Alley, said by email that “though this is one paper, it usefully reminds us that large and rapid changes are possible, and it raises important research questions as to what those changes might mean if they were to occur. But, the paper does not include enough ice-sheet physics to tell us how much how rapidly is how likely.”
Video above: James Hanson speaks on subjects of ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms. From (https://youtu.be/JP-cRqCQRc8).
Hawaii ans sea level rise
SUBHEAD: Will our beaches, Waikiki and downtown streets, and the Ewa plain all be under water? Ditto for neighbor islands?
Image above: A new report demonstrates the vulnerability of the Oahu coastline from climate change and beach erosion. It estimates the inundation of sea water during a storm surge in Honolulu between Pearl Harbor (right) and Waikiki (left). Red indicates 6 feet of water. From(http://oos.soest.hawaii.edu/pacioos/projects/slr/).
Sea level will rise much sooner and faster, inundating Oahu shorelines, with mega storms driving much larger ocean waves inland. NASA scientist research group states impact of global warming will be quicker and more catastrophic than envisioned.
Will our next generation of residents see our beaches, Waikiki and downtown streets, and the Ewa plain all under water? Ditto for neighbor islands?
With the complete destruction of 33% of Oahu's prime AG land producing 4 to 6 crops a year in EWA, and all covered in concrete and asphalt as the money worshippers want, a massive heat island will be created and massive flooding will occur.
Society has a moral and ethical imperative to make sure that does not happen to those who follow us into the 2nd half of this century and into the 22nd century, but the money idolators and politicians they bribe don't give a hoot about the future, only the present.
How long will it be before the Honolulu mass transit rail system under construction becomes inoperable and abandoned due to flodding of Ewa plain?
Oh, that won't matter because all the profiteers will have gotten all their money and moved on, leaving taxpayers holding the bag.
What do you think those superstorms are going to do to land-based and sea-based wind turbines?
This is NOT the time to buy a beach front home or a home anywhere in Ewa. Report above demonstrates the vulnerability of the Oahu coastline from climate change and beach erosion.
Another good report below from University of Hawaii School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) concerning Human carbon release rate is unprecedented in the past 66 million years of Earth's history.
Over the weekend my wife Linda and I visited Honolulu to see her son, who lives there with his wife and their son. We visited three wonderful museums. The Bishop Museum, the Honolulu Museum of Art and Doris Duke Foundation's Museum of Islamic Art known as Shangri La. Each has a unique world class collection. All are impeccably presented.
The Bishop covers Hawaiian and Polynesian culture and history as well Earth sciences. The Honolulu Museum of Art's collection has representation of world wide art covering over a thousand years as well as contemporary showings.
A special show on display now presents a large collection of the French sculpture of Auguste Rodin. Shangri La presents Duke's collection of Islamic architecture, art and craft that covers centuries and has origins from spanning from Spain across Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
I don't remember another time I enjoyed the experience of museums more.
Honolulu has recently grown to be the eleventh largest city in America. Most of it is quite new as cities go. It's economy is for the most part fueled by tourism, that is mostly brought to Hawaii by jet fuel. To me that doesn't seem a very solid foundation for the future.
In Honolulu most of the tourism seems to come from Asia, specifically from Japan and more recently China. Young well to do couples from Beijing, in search of a McDonalds, now stroll along the Waikiki Beach sidewalk past homeless aging Vietnam vets and bag ladies. It's an odd clash of civilizations.
We saw many homeless in Honolulu. The climate is easier on the homeless there than than Buffalo or Saint Paul.
Linda and I and her grandson arrived early at the Honolulu Museum of Art so he killed some time in the six acre park across the street called Thomas Square.
The park is a lovely site that has been largely abandoned to the homeless. People lay on the lawn in the shadows of trees in camouflage sleeping bags or next to shopping carts.
At its center is the remains of a large fountain that is about 100 feet in diameter that is surrounded by mature banyan trees. The six inch water main that fed the fountain is shut off. The fountain is empty with a film of pond scum and some litter.
This morning, as I was online checking out material for this website while I was listening to Minnesota Public Radio. George Weiblen, a biologist from the University of Minnesota, was being interviewed.
Weiblen was back from a research trip to Papua, New Guinea. For years he has been studying the forests there and the effects of climate change there. New Guinea has the third largest tropical jungle in the world behind the Amazon and Congo.
New Guinea is now going through what Minnesota went through in the 19th century - namely deforestation, or put another way "the arrival of civilization". His point was that it seems a requirement of a place being civilized is that first it is deforested.
I know this sounds pretty obvious, but somehow his presentation of this idea hit a nerve in me. My response is "if that's the case - we don't need so much civilization.
Weiblen added that if we (European settlers )in ) could push the indigenous inhabitants out of the forests of North America and then clear cut them, how could we tell people in Papau, New Guinea, not to do the same.
This moral dilemma is settled for me not by allowing New Guinea forests to be cut, but to require the farmland in Minnesota to be reforested - again, we don't need so much civilization.
The following interview with Peter Snyder, a climate scientist at the University of Minnesota. He discussed the increased occurrence of heat waves and more violent storms and the problems of mitigating heat islands created by massive urban development like twin cities of Minneapolis-Saint Paul.
Some might think a place like Minnesota would be embracing global warming as a improvement to the icy cold that grips the region for much of the year. But the truth is that global warming is residue of our killing everything in our path. It's what civilized human beings.
So we do we don't need so much civilization.
We need to immediately begin the journey back to being indigenous people. That could take the form of living as shoreline fishermen, in pastoral villages, woodland gardens or as nomadic hunter gatherers. But it won't be as urban/suburban car-driving bean counters, baristas or personal assistants.
We need to live in the places we are as if they were the last places on Earth. Because they are.
This is the calm before a storm. It is now that you have a chance to plan and fit out, as you can, the resources you'll need.
The COP21 climate change conference going on in Paris is dwindling down to a fight by corporations for table scraps of resources that are left in the "Third World".
The most "civilized" countries in the world - including France, Germany, England, America, Russia et cetera, seem hell bent on joining in on World War IV in Syria to control what fossil fuel is left in the Middle East.
Hawaii Gov. David Ige has declared a State of Emergency to deal with the state's homelessness crisis just days after city and state officials cleared one of the nation's largest homeless encampments.
The move will help the state speed up the process of building a homeless shelter for families, and the state is considering four possible sites, Ige said at a news conference Friday.
"We are making sure that we have options for those who are homeless to move into an emergency shelter, and the biggest deficit in the system is shelter space for families," Ige said. "So the emergency proclamation would allow us to stand up shelters for families in an expeditious manner."
Hawaii saw a 23 percent increase in its unsheltered homeless population from 2014 to 2015 and a 46 percent increase in the number of unsheltered families, said Scott Morishige, the state's homelessness coordinator.
There were 7,260 homeless people in Hawaii at the latest count, meaning Hawaii has the highest rate of homelessness per capita of any state in the nation.
The state has identified $1.3 million to expand services to homeless individuals and families, he said. In addition to a new shelter, the money also would go to the state's Housing First program, which provides homes and services to chronically homeless individuals without requiring them to get sober or treat mental illness first and programs that help families pay deposits and rent.
The new transitional shelter the state is envisioning would house about 15 families at a time, Morishige said. Two of the sites under consideration are in Kakaako, the neighborhood where the large homeless encampment was cleared, and the other sites are in Liliha and near Sand Island.
The recent clearing of the Kakaako homeless encampment could be used as a model in other parts of the state, Ige said. By coordinating with service providers, more than half of the estimated 300 residents of the encampment, including 25 families, were moved into shelters and permanent housing, the governor said.
When completed in December, the shelter, in an industrial part of Honolulu, will temporarily house up to 87 clients at a time.
"They definitely are off the streets and in a better situation where we are in a position to provide them services that will help us move them permanently out of the state of homelessness," he said.
Meanwhile on Friday, crews were installing converted shipping containers for Honolulu's latest homeless shelter on a gravel lot on Sand Island. The rooms in the first units were designed for couples and are 73 square feet.
"If they're living in tents now, the individual units are going to be just as large or larger," said Chris Sadayasu, the asset management administrator for the Honolulu Office of Strategic Development.
The rooms, which were made from new shipping containers, each have a window and a screen door for ventilation.
The structures are insulated, and the roofs have white reflective coating, and an awning will provide shade for relaxing outside, said Russ Wozniak, an architect and engineer from Group 70, an architecture firm. The coating and insulation keep the units about 30 degrees cooler than they would otherwise be, Wozniak said.
"It's kind of as comfortable as you can get without mechanical air conditioning," Wozniak said.
A trailer on site holds five bathrooms that each have a toilet and shower, and there's a separate portable toilet and shower that are accessible to the disabled.
There will be security on site 24/7 along with management officials. Although the plan calls for a shuttle services to provide residents rides to the nearest bus stop, homeless advocates feel the location may not work. "Accessibility to resources: stores, fresh water, schools, jobs override any desire to actually want to come all the way out to Sand Island," said Kathryn Xian of the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery. Its proximity to town is not the only thing that people are concerned with. Opponents say that the area's weather conditions may make it unbearable to live in those metal containers. "We're concerned about the baking factor of these units. There are no trees that I saw in the design and the lack of access to water running water infrastructure rises the concern a bit more," said Xian. City officials will offer opportunities for homeless to visit the site before deciding to live here. Initial construction will cost about $500,000 to build. The city will spend about $1.5 million a year on support services for residents. This location will only be open for three years because the land owners have plans for the property after that.
[IB Publisher's note: Many who come to Hawaii realize it is possible to live outdoors. It seems that Gov. Ige will go to great extremes to keep the homeless in Honolulu hidden from visitors. Control of the raised vehicular causeway that is the only access to Sand Island will in effect "trap" homeless people. What Ige seems to have envisioned is a FEMA camp for those who can't rent or own housing.
Wikipedia describes Sand Island, "formerly known as Quarantine Island, as a small island within the city of Honolulu. It was known as Quarantine Island during the nineteenth century, when it was used to quarantine ships believed to carry contagious passengers. During World War II, Sand Island was used as an Armyinternment camp to house Japanese Americans." The Sand Island lies between Honolulu International Airport's an artificial island called Reef Runway and down town Honolulu. Heavy takeoff traffic of large jets takes place from Reef Runway.
When construction of Reef Island was proposed in the 1970's an organization called Life of the Land sued the Department of Transportation contending that construction of the Reef Runway would result in "loss of surfing sites" and "loss of the effective use of the proposed Sand Island Park due to high aircraft noise. See (http://www.hawaii.edu/ohelo/courtdecisions/LifeoftheLand73.htm). That has been what happened. Now a noisy public park extends along the south shore of Sand Island. Most of Sand Island is used as an industrial site with a fuel farm and other non-residential uses.The site for these "container homes" was fenced off and the topsoil and grass scraped away. Six inches of used roadway blacktop was laid down over the entire site and compressed. This surface will be a drivable by flatbed trucks delivering containers. Not a blade of grass will grow and the surface will be hot and emit petro-chemical gases.] .
Image above: traffic moves slowly through rail construction in Waipahu along the Farrington Highway. From original article.
Last week top rail officials on Oahu said the transit project’s budget shortfall could climb to more than a billion dollars and take at least another year longer to build. Some of the project’s most ardent critics now say they worry the price tag could climb even higher.
Former Hawaiian Gov. Ben Cayetano, who ran for Honolulu mayor in 2012 on an anti-rail platform and tried to stop the project in court, pointed this week to a 2010 cost analysis commissioned by his successor, former Gov. Linda Lingle, as an example that the city had been warned its financial projections were too rosy.
The report, done by Infrastructure Management Group Inc. and CB Richard Ellis, predicted that rail could cost $1.7 billion more than expected over a 20-year period. Rail supporters, including former Mayor Peter Carlisle, criticized the report at the time as little more than an anti-rail analysis with a $350,000 price tag.
The report did, however, predict a rail construction shortfall that could be covered by extending the rail tax for between five and 19 years.
Five years later the state Legislature found itself considering a 20-year rail tax extension to deal with a construction shortfall, before deciding to authorize a five-year extension during its 2015 legislative session.
“All this information was already over to the city, to everybody else, and nobody paid attention,” Cayetano, a Democrat, said of his Republican successor Lingle’s report Monday. “If they don’t take steps to reduce the costs,” rail could become a “tremendous sinkhole” to the city and taxpayers, he said.
When local transit officials signed a deal to build rail with federal officials, it was expected to cost $5.2 billion. Now it’s projected to cost more than $6 billion to complete.
Rail officials say they can assure Honolulu residents there won’t be more dramatic price hikes —once all of the contracts to build it are signed. “The good news is you and I will have a much more boring conversation nine months from now,” Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Executive Director Dan Grabauskas said Monday. At that point all of the bids for remaining work should be opened. “We’ll have certainty next summer,” he said.
To help stave off cost increases, Cayetano suggests that HART stop building the rail line at Middle Street and then create a bus rapid-transit system from that endpoint into town, instead of building the full 20-mile, 21-station line to Ala Moana Center.
Grabauskas called that idea a “nonstarter.”
The rail agency is already building what’s been deemed by federal officials to be the minimum system possible, he said. The Federal Transit Administration might consider extending the dead line to finish the elevated transit project, but it won’t allow HART to build anything less than the minimum,according to Grabauskas. The move would put the city at risk of breaching its $1.55 billion contract, he said.
Cayetano, who served as Hawaii’s governor from 1994 to 2002, called it “silly” to think the FTA would demand all of that money back. The agency would not look to drive Honolulu into bankruptcy, and, “I doubt very much that the FTA is going to say you’ve got to finish the project,” he said.
On Sept. 15, Grabauskas and new HART board Chairman Don Horner delivered to Mayor Kirk Caldwell and City Council Chairman Ernie Martin — two political rivals expected to compete in next year’s mayoral election — a letter stating that rail could cost $200 million more to build on top of its existing $910 million shortfall.
Horner and Grabauskas further stated that rail would likely be completed in 2021 instead of January 2020. The main reasons they pointed to were the court and contract challenges that stalled the project’s schedule by more than a year, as well as “traffic mitigation initiatives” (by which crews aren’t closing as many lanes and working as many hours in busy thoroughfares).
Repackaging rail’s remaining work contracts to save costs was also a key reason contributing to rail’s likely missing its deadline, they added.
Rail officials insist the move was the right one to save money despite contributing to delays, but they remain unable to explain why they’ve changed the approach to design and construction three times since the project started. If the approach had remained consistent, then that repackaging would not have been a factor causing the delays.
“That predates me,” Grabauskas said Monday. Besides acknowledging its indecisiveness on design and construction, HART points almost exclusively to external factors in causing the cost increases and delays, dating back to Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner Paulette Kaleikini’s successful 2011 lawsuit to stop the project until the route’s full archaeological inventory survey was completed.
“I’m a hard person on myself. Yes, we’re accountable … but we can explain why we made the decisions that we’ve had,” Grabauskas said. “People will be the judge, ultimately.”
Cayetano disagreed.
“What delayed this thing is their incompetence and their misleading people about the costs of this,” he said Monday of rail officials.
Image above: A man lies sleeping on grass near Waikiki Beach in Honolulu. Photo by Cathy Bussewitz. From original article.
On a tropical island known for its clean, blue waters and sandy beaches, the last thing business owners want is an image tarnished by homeless camps and sidewalks cluttered with squatters.
In the 2014 “State of Homelessness in America” report, Hawaii ranked highest among the 50 states for homeless people per capita. A recent state-sponsored tally found there were more than 4,700 homeless on Oahu, with at least 2,200 on neighboring islands — figures that most advocates agree underreport the true total. With Honolulu’s business interests and residents frustrated by Oahu’s growing homeless population, the city has introduced three laws aimed at clearing city streets and parks.
On Sept. 16, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell signed three bills that make it a misdemeanor (punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a maximum $1,000 fine) to sit or lie on sidewalks in the bustling tourist district of Waikiki and outlaw relieving oneself in public islandwide.
Homeless advocates say the new laws unfairly target Hawaii’s most vulnerable residents, especially since Waikiki has only one 24-hour public restroom in the crowded district.
Kathryn Xian, executive director of the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, said Honolulu’s sit-lie law is unconstitutional and points to Hawaii’s historic “law of the splintered paddle,” known in Hawaiian as kanawai mamalahoe.
Introduced by King Kamehameha around 1797, the law states, “Let every elderly person, woman and child lie by the roadside in safety.” Kanawai mamalahoe is written into Hawaii’s state constitution, and homeless advocates say it must be upheld, while sit-lie supporters say it is only symbolic and not legally binding.
Xian also cited a 2012 research report that found such laws don’t increase economic activity or improve homeless services.
But members of the business community, like Rick Egged, president of the Waikiki Improvement Association, support the measures. “There has been a remarkable improvement,” he said. “A number of people on Kalakaua Avenue that were staking out and panhandling visitors — they’re gone.”
He said the concentration of Hawaii’s tourism industry in Waikiki made the district a “target-rich environment” for homeless people looking to receive money from visitors.
He acknowledged the importance of policies that help those unable to take care of themselves but stressed, “We want to make sure that homeless people understand we’re not going to let them take over Waikiki’s public spaces.”
Sherry Menor-McNamara, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, said that while the new laws aren’t a perfect solution, they’re “a step in the right direction” that will improve traffic to Waikiki’s shops.
She said her organization has been receiving phone calls from visitors expressing concerns about the growing number of homeless people in Honolulu. “We’ve heard from some [visitors] that they wouldn’t want to return to Hawaii because it’s gotten worse,” she said.
The laws come a year after the city passed an ordinance authorizing officials to remove objects deemed a “public nuisance” from the sidewalk, including tents, containers, furniture, food, medication and other personal items.
Homeless supporters urged leaders to address broader issues of economic inequality, a lack of affordable housing and what they see as the state’s misplaced priorities that reward transnational business interests at the expense of the state’s most socially and economically marginalized classes.
“We are not a Disneyland paradise,” said Laulani Teale, a coordinator at the nonprofit peace project Hoopae Pono. “The people here are in a very real struggle to survive, and they’re being displaced at a terrible rate.”
The Caldwell administration plans to relocate a hundred “chronic homeless” who meet specific criteria to an industrial site called Sand Island as part of its “compassionate disruption” policy.
Critics blast the plan as an attempt to expel Honolulu’s most desperate population to an isolated, unsafe and uninhabitable location where they will be out of sight but no better off.
“I would argue it is much more incompassionate to leave people on the streets in place than to pick them up and take them to a shelter,” Honolulu City Council Member Ikaika Anderson said at a press conference.
Xian, however, called Sand Island a “de facto internment camp.”
The 173-acre island, composed mostly of dredged sediment and fill, was an actual internment camp used to detain U.S. citizens of Japanese descent and others during World War II. Before that, it was used to quarantine ship passengers.
In the 1970s Native Hawaiians established their own village on Sand Island but were evicted by the state for trespassing. More recently, it has served as a sewage treatment plant and solid waste disposal site. A 2000 EPA study reported parts of the island were contaminated with arsenic, lead, nickel, methylene chloride and possibly pesticides and PCBs. While concerns of remnant toxins persist, the city has proposed paving the homeless transition site with asphalt.
Caldwell’s office declined to provide comment for this story but in a news release wrote that Sand Island would offer a “safe, supportive environment and provide assessment services, stability and access to supportive services.”
Honolulu resident H. Doug Matsuoka describes himself as one of Hawaii’s “hidden homeless”; he lacks a permanent residence and is staying with a friend. He said he sees “more homeless all over town,” including a greater number of families with children.
Hawaii’s homeless population reflects the state’s diverse demographics. Homeless advocates say most are lifelong or longtime island residents, and increasingly they are elderly, children, military veterans, victims of domestic violence and mental health patients struggling as health services are cut.
According to a 2013 University of Hawaii Center on the Family report, roughly one-third of Hawaii’s homeless are Native Hawaiians (though they represent only 10 percent of the overall population). Another third are Caucasians, with the remainder a mix of people, half of whom are Micronesians who can legally migrate to the U.S. under a special agreement, the Compact of Free Association.
A 90-minute drive west of Honolulu, on Oahu’s hot, arid Waianae coast, Alice Ululani Kaholo Greenwood recalled her experience with homelessness in 2005. A Native Hawaiian, she lost her home when her landlord sold the house she was renting and she couldn’t afford a new place.
“I used to criticize the homeless,” she said. “Then when I moved on the beach, [homeless people] really helped me.” After nine months of homelessness, she was able to get into subsidized housing but continues to fight for other homeless people.
According to Greenwood, Waianae’s harbor has more than 250 homeless, including some 40 children.
Alongside the increase in homelessness is a boom in large-scale, luxury construction projects in central Honolulu and other parts of Oahu. These developments underscore the lack of affordable housing in a state where the median sale price of a single-family home on Oahu was $678,500 (condominium $347,000) in September.
State Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland, chair of the Senate Human Services Committee, said Hawaii’s real estate investment trends have helped drive the cost of land and property taxes higher while Hawaii has failed to keep up with housing demand for at least a decade. She pointed to a 2011 study that reports Hawaii could require as many as 50,000 new housing units by 2016 to meet current needs.
“People don’t know they’re affecting local folks, but when [they] move here and buy [multi]million-dollar homes, that jacks up everyone’s value,” said Chun Oakland, who represents an urban district where many homeless live.
Kyle Kajihiro, a board member with the nonprofit group Hawaii Peace and Justice, blamed military expropriation of land in Hawaii for contributing to the homeless problem.
“The stark contrast between the landlessness of Native Hawaiians and the vast amount of land occupied by the military is symbolic of the injustice of Hawaii’s military-political economy,” he said.
Numerous groups and organizations submitted comments and testimony on the 22 mile Honolulu Rail Archaeological Impact Statement (AIS) to the State Historic Preservation Division (SHPD) to meet the May 30th Deadline. The new AIS comment period had been extended because of last year's Hawaii Supreme Court ruling that the rail AIS cannot be done in phases or segments.
The previous 2009 AIS omitted a great deal of valid cultural information, many groups were not consulted, and data was skewed to fit a 'rush-to-begin-building-the-rail' agenda, rather than any attempt at honest historic and cultural preservation. The law finally caught up with them.
In his ruling, Federal Judge Wallace Tashima made a special point of noting his concern about the identification of Traditional Cultural Properties (TCPs) along the HART rail route. It was later made clear in recent HART meetings that TCP's include all cultures, not just native Hawaiian, as per federal law.
HART is required to also adhere to Department of Transportation Act of 1966 special provision - Section 4(f) - which stipulates that US DOT agencies-including the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), cannot approve the use of land from wildlife and waterfowl refuges or public or private historical sites unless both of the following conditions apply:
There is no feasible and prudent alternative.
The action includes all possible planning to minimize harm to the property resulting from use.
Hawaiian Cultural Practitioner Mike Lee, along with Hawaii Thousand Friends, submitted approximately 800 pages of detailed comment and testimony on the the HART Rail AIS covering the entire 22 mile route. This package included maps, photographs, emails with many agencies (HART, SHPD, DLNR, BLNR, Oahu Burial Council, HCDA, etc.) that go back nearly a decade, as well as news articles, historic research and citations, legal documents and filings, native Hawaiian rights, the Clean Water Act, and much more.
A key issue for Lee is the identification of the ancient coral reef limestone along the Oahu shoreline known as Karst, which connects volcanic mountain lava tube water to the shoreline Karst reef water systems. These water springs feed a shoreline ecosystem and was how ancient Hawaiians managed their fish ponds. The Karst was also of very high spiritual importance to ancient Hawaiians and used for sacred burials, such as downtown Honolulu on the grounds of I'olani Palace where there is an ancient Karst burial cave.
"I wanted them to know that I wasn't just making this up ten minutes ago" said Lee. "I am a Konohikist- I believe in the ecological management and protection of our very important natural island water systems. Protecting our Wahi Kapu sites is also very important to me."
Lee's testimony concerns identification and protection of important Hawaiian cultural sites along the rail route, including wahi pana (sacred sites) and wahi kapu (sacred burial areas) and their inclusion into a TCP (Traditional Cultural Properties) that would make sure these special sites, caves, caverns, springs, ponds and water systems are preserved and not contaminated during rail construction.
Also included were photographs of Kawaiaha'o Church which is a graphic example of early Karst limestone block construction. The church and surrounding walls are made of rough ancient reef from the shoreline and ancient sea shells and marine organisms can be clearly seen. The church is also located on the site of an important ancient Karst spring. Nearby I'olani Palace and the royal guard barracks are also constructed from Karst limestone blocks from the shoreline.
In addition, Kanehili Cultural Hui also submitted another approximately 250 pages of detailed comment and testimony on the the HART Rail AIS- primarily concerned with the Honouliuli-Ewa area and the documentation of previously unidentified Traditional Cultural Properties (TCP), Ewa Historic Districts, Ewa Dec 7, 1941 Battlefield Area and an outline for a Honouliuli-Ewa Cultural Landscape Report.
Many current or former Ewa Village residents helped by supplying historic documents, maps, photos and oral histories. The Kanehili Hui name comes from the original Hawaiian name for the Honouliuli-Ewa area and is mentioned by Hawaiian goddess Hi'iaka in her famous and often quoted chants when she traveled through the Ewa Plains area aprroximately 1000 years ago.
The Kanehili Cultural Hui 501-c-3 non-profit community organization is concerned with the entire cultural history of the area- from ancient times to modern times.
A key focus of the Kanehili Cultural Hui report and testimony was on the 1825 Malden Trails (ancient Hawaiian Trails- believed to have possibly been originally constructed by very early Tahitian arrivals to Kanehili) which played a major role in the Hawaiian cultural history of the Honouliuli-Ewa area, and which was entirely left out of the HART Rail AIS.
The fixed guideway and stations directly overlay the 1825 trails as well as the Kalo'i Karst waterway that flows to the Ewa shoreline.
Also of major importance is the identification and location of the Leina a ka Uhane, a sacred spiritual leaping off place for souls returning to the ancient homeland of Tahiti. This is a National Register eligible TCP, yet HART and the SHPD administrator has continuously tried to minimize the importance and geographic area of this TCP as well as apparently intentionally misidentify its location, despite the error being brought to their attention several times since last year.
The previous Rail AIS also failed in many ways to adequately document important Honouliuli-Ewa cultural sites such as the greater Ewa Plantation and railway network that was the largest private railway in Hawaii. The Oahu Railway that served Honouliuli-Ewa plantation railway was chartered under King David Kalakaua.
A Cultural Landscape Report (CLR) is the primary report that documents the history, significance and treatment of a cultural landscape. A CLR evaluates the history and integrity of the landscape including any changes to its geographical context, features, materials,and use.
HCDA ignores Community
SUBHEAD: Kalaeloa HCDA project in Ewa is 100% Developer Driven and 0% Community Oriented.
So the Hawaii Hawaii Community Development Authority (HCDA) runs away from promised local community briefing. Too much explaining to do having missed so MANY neighborhood boards meetings!
National Register Hawaiian sites and Ewa Battlefield IMPACTED by HCDA-HECO industrial power line without any community involvement or Environmental Assessment comments (by design of course).
Prison is against HCDA Master Plan. Power line is against Kalaleoa Master Plan, City Design rules, historic Hawaiian Railway faces decimation.
HCDA almost never tell the boards ANYTHING until the community hears about it as a done deal in the news. Local political reps have no idea what is really going on but love touting big local CIP projects in news letters...
State Highway will destroy historic Hawaiian Railway operations. Feds say it cannot be built as planned, but HCDA, State Reps, DOT and City Reps remain intentionally clueless and DEAF. None of them want to know what the local community thinks- just hand out newsletters and leave.
Usual HCDA tactics to not tell the community what is going on and avoiding the community neighborhood board process to break Federal NRHP and NEPA law for insider HCDA developers. Only option are LAWSUITS? Who cares, tax-payers pay for them ANYWAY!
$15 Million North South Road being rammed through by HCDA and State DOT despite opposition by Hawaiian Railway Society. Local reps remain completely confused and clueless about the important issues involved.(Their only role are photo ops and handing out community certificates?)
Local reps are completely confused about what Environmental Assessment and Power Line HCDA is actually paying HECO to put in (and WHY). They keep referring to 2011 project because HCDA has never told anyone about the 2014 project that has been kept SECRET (unless you know where to look) to prevent community comments. (HCDA only wants DEVELOPER comments...)
Important Hawaiian sites being bulldozed for HCDA PV farm but all is hushed up...This is the Wild West Oahu where historic, cultural and environmental laws don't apply...
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