Speakers reveal that tourism will be an early casualty of peak oil impacts and we must act locally to support our needs. “Technology will not bail us out. We have to change our behavior.”More than 300 professional planners, state and county workers, and other interested audience members gathered last week at the Grand Wailea Resort for two days of talks focusing on “E Ola Pono,” or “Planning Island Style.” The Maui County Planning Department hosted the Hawai‘i Conference of Planning Officials (HCPO), and many in attendance were impressed with the poignancy of the messages delivered by three Mainland keynote speakers and University of Hawai‘i lecturer Ramsey Taum.
Oregon Department of Energy Senior Policy Analyst John Kaufman was invited to speak about the implications of “Peak Oil.” He told those gathered that airlines would be among the first to feel the impacts and predicted that “tourism will be an early casualty.”
Immediately following Kaufman, Attorney Michael Shuman, an author and economist, presented a number of possible solutions in his talk, “The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Can Boost an Island Economy.”
On Wednesday, conference attendees signed up for “mobile workshops” showcasing the South Maui Shoreline, Maui Electric Company’s Ma‘alaea generating station, Kaheawa Wind Farm and Central Maui’s water intake system, storage and treatment facility. At the opening session on Thursday, audience members were invited by Maui County Planning Director Jeff Hunt to be “inspired, invigorated and to celebrate planning.”
Hunt also exhibited a biting sense of humor. After introducing the four top “Sandalwood Level” conference sponsors, which included Alexander & Baldwin, Maui Land & Pineapple, and Dowling Company, he quipped, “These sponsors can stop by and pick up their fill-in-the-blank change of zoning applications.”
As part of the opening ceremony, Hunt and planning directors from two other counties brought gifts wrapped in ti leaves to Na Keiki O Punana Leo Hawaiian immersion pre-school. Dressed in their finest aloha attire, the children joined hands on stage and sang while their Hawaiian language instructor played ‘ukulele. It was a touching reminder that proper planning must anticipate the needs of the next generations, not just build for today.
Taum, also the director of Sustain Hawai‘i, articulated how looking to Hawai‘i’s cultural past is necessary to ensure a sustainable future. Using the analogy of early canoe voyagers bringing all they needed before setting out on the ocean, he stated that modern residents of Hawai‘i must embark upon a voyage of re-discovery to achieve sustainability.
Taum cautioned that the economic lens through which we view so many things must fall apart. “We must derive benefit from taking care of the air, water and land,” he said. “That, in turn, nurtures the culture, and then we derive true benefits.”
Taum said we must “recognize the insanity” of our unsustainable imports, change the way we think, change our behavior, plan for seven generations, and act locally to live in balance and support our needs.
Kaufman’s presentation, “Current Oil Crisis: Causes and Prospects,” was the most sobering of the conference. He ran through several studies and graphs of the world’s dwindling oil supplies, juxtaposed with rising costs. Even production from the world’s two largest suppliers, Russia and Saudi Arabia, appears to be leveling off.
Kaufman cited the biggest obstacle we face is the belief that a “magic bullet” will replace the cheap, abundant petroleum that has fueled our consumptive ways. He said that despite claims made by proponents of more drilling, nuclear, coal, oil shale, tar sands, biofuels and hydrogen, they will all fall short. “We need every bit of wind and solar we can get,” he said.
Kaufman shared a number of recommendations that came out of his work with the Portland Peak Oil Task Force. Among those were: expand energy efficiency programs; adapt land use patterns for “no more sprawl;” promote sustainable business opportunities; encourage transportation options; preserve local food production capacity; and greatly reduce consumption.
“We don’t have a supply problem,” Kaufman stated, “we have a demand problem.”
Though Kaufman’s talk wasn’t all gloom and doom, it was direct enough that Hunt, acting as master of ceremonies, joked, “In case you were wondering, that’s why we included the razor blades in your conference packet.”
Shuman spoke next, and there was a collective sigh when he began by saying, “I will give a somewhat upbeat perspective.” He stated that land use planning alone won’t solve the problems we face.
“All of us need to go back to business school,” Shuman said. “The good news is that localization is the obvious solution, but right now, shipping costs are dominating the equation.”
He said he had reviewed a Maui County Office of Economic Development paper for 2030. “This report needs to be fundamentally rewritten,” he said.
“Trends are favoring small local business,” Shuman said. “However, we have securities laws that were implemented in the early Jurassic period that make it really hard for small business to take investment capital.”
He said shipping, packaging and distribution costs now mean that an average farmer receives only seven cents out of every food dollar. A century ago, that figure was 40 cents to the farmer.
Shuman offered a number of suggestions for ways of Going Local, also the title of his first book. They include: plugging leaks in planning that inhibit local business incentives; supporting local entrepreneurs; competing through collaboration (which prompted an audience member to pull out her ‘Ohana Savers card); harnessing pension funds locally; promoting “local first” purchasing and removing policy-making bias to the status quo belief that “there is no alternative.”
“I would argue that all of us are choosing poorly,” Shuman concluded, “by putting local business to the side and not to the central focus of our planning.”
Mayor Charmaine Tavares, speaking on one of the discussion panels, said,
“I represent a shift in the counties for a quest to self-sufficiency. The question is, ‘What will we do on Monday?’ We need a result, a change in our behavior, or our conferences are all for naught.”
Kaufman’s final message was much the same. “At the risk of hyperbole,” he said, “We are at a turning point in history. Technology will not bail us out. We have to change our behavior.”
Taum said an elder once told him that the best way to build a canoe is simply to build it. “Don’t just talk about it.”