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COMMENTARY Sustainability needs to be a hotter issue By John Griffin |
Sustainability.
It's a buzzword with dozens of definitions. My Google search brought three pages of varying meanings that most often centered on the idea of wisely providing for current needs without damaging those of future generations.
In any event, it's the safe, or at least accepted, theme for many planning programs, conferences and campaigns, including several this month on Neighbor Islands.
And take notice: Hawai'i is going to be hearing a lot more about sustainability issues in the next couple of years. Let's hope it even becomes a hot political topic by 2008.
The Hawai'i 2050 Sustainability Task Force — established in 2005 by a state law and including legislators of both parties, state and county planners, and University of Hawai'i experts — has been little-noticed so far, even if it holds long monthly meetings. But now it is about to launch an 18-month process that will try to engage all segments of Hawai'i in looking ahead to the middle of this century.
We are overdue for a mixture of solid modern planning and envisioning the kind of future Hawai'i today wants for ourselves and our offspring. After all, our then-pioneering 1970 Conference on the Year 2000 is now only a dim memory of initial success and inadequate follow-up. Much the same might be said about a later work on "Carrying Capacity," the buzz term that preceded sustainability. And, of course, the now-dated but ambitious State Plan of the 1970s and '80s has long been ignored.
Not only that, we are in a new century of tough challenges and lingering hopes. Crossroads and tipping point may be cliches, but they say something about this time of rapid growth, aging infrastructure, social problems dramatized by homelessness, crucial educational needs, stated public unhappiness with priorities, controversy over Hawaiian rights — such things are mixed with rising new generations, bright young people back with Mainland experience, the information age and chances for economic diversification. If not always exciting, at least it's not dull.
The kickoff for the task force's public process is Aug. 26 with a conference for 500 people at the Dole Ballrooms in 'Iwilei. Various community groups and the general public are invited. Information is at www.hawaii2050.org.
This won't be your usual conference. Yes, a few good speakers will be heard. But the program will feature innovative alternative views of what Hawai'i could be like in 2050, and what it was 50 years ago. Also for discussion are some of the trade-offs and critical choices for a preferred Hawai'i.
Still, this conference is just a prelude to months of small-group gatherings and larger town meetings all around the Islands to work on details of a proposed Hawai'i 2050 Sustainability Plan. The task force will submit that for review and discussion by the Legislature in its 2008 session.
After talking to some involved and attending a long task force meeting (shown live on Capitol TV, channel 49), I am both impressed by the amount of detailed discussion and work that's gone on so far, and in awe at how much remains to be done. Some key open-ended questions remain. Among them:
Fortunately, many such questions have been at least asked, if not really answered, by the task force's two dozen members chaired by state Sen. Russell Kokubun and assisted by the private Hawai'i Institute for Public Affairs.
The goal in all this is not to predict the future, which is largely impossible. Nor should it be to just extend present trends (more and more tourism, etc.) and simply update the State Plan. This is a chance to think about what's possible and work creatively toward a future we desire.
And that's why the next couple of years could be central to the kind of Hawai'i our children and grandchildren will have for much of this century.
John Griffin, a frequent contributor, is a former Advertiser editorial page editor.
