Hawaii - Jeff Campbell [1]
Hawaii’s economy is overdependent on tourism, construction and real estate – three entwined activities that take a heavy toll on the environment and are particularly sensitive to recession. When recession then swept the nation in 2008, Hawaii’s tourism nose-dived and construction stalled, and by year’s end state revenue shortfalls had soared to nearly $2 billion. Much like President Obama, Hawaii’s governor Linda Lingle has proposed that Hawaii spend its way out of trouble, and she’s offered a $1.8 billion stimulus plan to fund a host of public works. New highways and bridges are the main focus, but improving Hawaii’s communication infrastructure, to attract high-tech industry and help diversify the economy, is another goal. Supporting small-farm agriculture, and emphasizing a ‘buy local’ mentality, will also hopefully increase economic stability by decreasing Hawaii’s reliance on others.
Though the recession will clearly slow certain changes, one area where Hawaii is not waiting is energy. In 2008 Governor Lingle signed the Hawai’i Clean Energy Initiative (HCEI), which sets the goal of having a 70% clean energy economy by 2030. Hawaii is the USA’s most oil-dependent state (spending $7 billion annually on foreign oil), and it has the high utility bills to prove it. With HCEI, it’s now pursuing every renewable and clean energy option available – wind farms on Maui, geothermal and biomass on the Big Island, electric cars on O’ahu, in addition to remaking its electricity grid. If it succeeds, Hawaii would become the first economy based primarily on clean energy (see http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/info/energy/hcei).
This would be revolutionary. However, lower bills and less pollution won’t solve Hawaii’s dire fight against invasive species. In fact, recession-inspired budget cuts may gut eradication efforts, despite the fact that Hawaii’s unique ecosystems – in which 90% of all species are endemic – cannot survive intact without human intervention.
Intertwined with these issues is the one of quality of life. Tourism brings in about 7 million visitors annually, five times the state population. This impacts on everyday life – crowding the roads, the beaches, the surfing spots and driving up the price of real estate. Among cities, Honolulu has the third-highest cost of living in the country. While residents accept with equanimity a certain ‘paradise tax,’ there’s the uncomfortable sense that costs have become too high.
Maintaining Hawaii’s cultural identity is intimately linked to the health of the Native Hawaiian community, whose income levels and educational achievements typically fall below state averages. Recent years have seen some improvements (like increased dispersal of Hawaiian Home Lands and the continued funding of Hawaiian Charter Schools), but state programs like these aimed solely at helping Native Hawaiians have given rise to controversies over race-based preferential treatment. Many feel the solution to this is for Native Hawaiians to be federal recognized as an indigenous people who could, similar to Native American tribes, maintain some form of sovereign self-government. Legislation asking for this, the Akaka Bill, has sat before the US Congress since 2000. Yet there is now excited hope that it might soon be passed because the nation’s new president is someone who ‘understands Hawaii’ and has pledged to support it.
Ask locals about all this and they freely acknowledge the challenges facing their state. They are also quick to add that they wouldn’t live anywhere else. Hawaii may be endangered, but it possesses a beauty and spirit that can be found nowhere else.