#Hawaii does something very smart that may help curb the proliferation of monster #trucks and #SUVs: Vehicle registration fees are based mainly on the car's weight, and the rate per pound goes up with higher weight. So the owner of a smallish, 3,500 pound car pays 1.75 cents per pound while an owner of a 9000 pound Hummer pays 2.25 cents per pound. More of this, please.
Youth activists win ‘unprecedented’ climate settlement in Hawaii
"#Hawaii officials have announced a “groundbreaking” legal settlement with a group of young #climate activists, which they said will force the state’s department of transportation to move more aggressively towards a zero-emission #transportation system."
Under 'historic' settlement, #Hawaii agrees to decarbonize the state's transportation - land, sea, air - by 2045. Young activists forced the agreement.
Hawaii agrees to settle youth climate change lawsuit
Under the settlement, Hawaii has agreed to develop a holistic roadmap to achieve zero carbon emissions in its transportation system by 2045 and give young people a seat at the table through a volunteer youth council, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said
The auroras over #Hawaii on the night of July 8, 1962, were unlike any that humans had ever witnessed. “N-Blast Tonight May Be Dazzling; Good View Likely,” read a headline in the Honolulu Advertiser beforehand. Nine seconds after 11 P.M., a startling flash set the sky aglow like eerie daylight, slowly fading from green to yellow to orange before settling on a vivid, unsettling red.
Today in Labor History May 22, 1960: An earthquake measuring 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale, hit southern Chile. It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded. The massive quake lasted for 10 minutes. It caused tsunamis in Chile, Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia and Alaska. In Chile, there were waves measuring over 80 feet high. 35-foot waves hit Hilo, Hawaii, devastating that state’s second largest city and killing 61 people. Between 1,000 and 6,000 people died. Over the course of two weeks, Chile experienced three earthquakes registering in the world’s ten most powerful that year.
Another telescope controversy is brewing, this time on #Maui
The U.S. Air Force wants to build seven more telescopes on the summit of #Haleakala to help better track the growing number of objects whizzing about in #space.
But the proposal, unveiled in public meetings on Maui for the first time last week, ran into a buzz saw of resistance similar to the ongoing opposition to the planned Thirty Meter Telescope on #Maunakea.
Today in Labor History May 9, 1909: Japanese workers struck at Oahu, Hawaii’s Aiea Plantation. They demanded the same pay as Portuguese and Puerto Rican workers. Ultimately 7,000 workers and their families remained out until August, when the strike was broken.
Lava erupts from a fissure east of the Leilani Estates subdivision during an eruption of the Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii, May 13, 2018. REUTERS/Terray Sylvester
Eddie Aikau is a legend in Hawaii, and to surfers around the world. From the mid-60s to the mid-70s he rode the biggest waves at the most dangerous breaks. However, he was also a working-class hero, saving over 500 lives as a lifeguard on Oahu’s north shore, often swimming into 20–30-foot waves to do so. And in 1978, he tragically sacrificed his own life to save his shipwrecked comrades, as they held onto their capsized outrigger, miles from shore.
Eddie Ryon Makuahanai Aikau, born May 5, 1946, was an indigenous Hawaiian. He grew up at a time when locals were not allowed near the tourist hotels and beaches in Hawaii. Racism was rife and Hawaiian culture was suppressed. Like many Native Hawaiians, his family had lost their land when the Hawaiian kingdom was overthrown in the 1890s by mainland business leaders known as the “Committee of Safety.” His family lived on a Chinese graveyard, which they cared for in exchange for free rent. Eddie left school at the age of 16 to work at the Dole pineapple cannery to help support his family.
In 1972, he was invited to participate in a surf contest in Durban, South Africa. He was supposed to meet fellow Hawaiian surfers Bill Hamilton and Jeff Hakman at a hotel (both haoles or European-descended), but management refused to allow him entrance because of his dark skin color. The racism infuriated him. But the experience inspired him to fight harder against the prejudice Native Hawaiians experienced at home.
In the mid-1970s, the “Free Ride” generation of Australian surfers began making a name for themselves on the North Shore of Oahu. They were talented, but also arrogant, and disrespectful of the locals. This hit the Native Hawaiian surfers particularly hard, in light of the years they were denied access to their own beaches and contests, and the continued racism they experienced.
Da Hui, a gang of local enforcers, formed in response. They beat up Australian surfer Rabbit Bartholomew, knocking out several of his teeth. They supposedly made death threats against other Aussies. Ian Cairns began traveling with a loaded shotgun. Some of Australians barricaded themselves in their hotel rooms.
Eddie Aikau stepped in, forming a ho’oponopono (traditional Hawaiian parlay) at the Turtle Bay Hotel, which served as a tribunal to resolve the conflict and the racism. The resolution included apologies by the Aussie surfers, and acknowledgement of the injustices and racism that persisted against Native Hawaiians. And it also led to a growing awareness in professional surfing of the indigenous roots of the sport and acknowledgement of the indigenous inhabitants of the regions where its contests are held. Today, professional surfers are identified by their national citizenship, except for those from Hawaii, who are identified as Hawaiians.
Hawaiian Legends of the Guardian Spirits by Caren Loebel-Fried, 2002
Ancient Hawaiians lived in a world where all of nature was alive with the spirits of their ancestors. These aumakua have lived on through the ages as family guardians and take on many natural forms, thus linking many Hawaiians to the animals, plants, and natural phenomena of their island home.