Given the city’s crumbling infrastructure and rail controversy, it’s hard to believe anyone would want to be the next mayor of Honolulu. But a few do want the job, including the incumbent, Mayor Peter Carlisle, the former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney who won a 2010 special election to fill the remainder of Mufi Hannemann’s term.
Green Nuuanu, swathed in clouds and rain, isn’t exactly the first neighborhood that springs to mind when it comes to solar energy. But on a hot, bright day on a street wedged between a mountain ridge and stream, the photovoltaic (PV) array atop Donna-Lynn Ching’s carport looks like brilliant idea.
Compared with, say, saving farms or oceans, garbage management isn’t a hip, sexy environmental issue. But it’s a big one that impacts all the others.
The controversy’s been in the news for months, but what’s largely been missing is a sense of the land itself. On a recent weekday morning, I take H-I west out of town.
From farmers in the ahupua‘a valleys who used and recycled every precious drop of water on its way to the sea, to fishermen who set kapus when species were spawning, to children riding ti leaves on a muddy slope or simply rolling down a grassy hill, to body surfers in a glassy wave, Hawaii has a long heritage of tapping into renewable energy, not just for work and sustenance, but for joy and play. As we roll down the home stretch to the 42nd Earth Day, April 22, what a joy to celebrate the planet and its resources: clean air, clean water, forests, farms and, most of all, our keiki and generations to come.
Faces glowing in the early light of dawn, more than 100 people gathered to watch the blessing and re-launching of Hokule’a at Sand Island. It was March 8, 2012, the anniversary of her original launch at Kualoa in 1975.
Living cheap. It doesn’t mean being cheap, as in tasteless and tawdry, pinching and miserly.
Hawaii’s waters of life, ka wai ola, are the very essence of life and culture in Hawaii, what we survive on and must pass along as a sustainable legacy. In the lyrics to “Aloha Oe,” Queen Liliuokalani tells of the rain falling onto the blossoms of native ohia trees in Hawaii’s mountain forests.
We all know to unplug energy vampires, those appliances that suck power from sockets even when they’re turned off. But what about the utility that drains our pockets?
Green travel isn’t just about where you’re going or how you’ll get there. It’s about place and people and an assessment of the impact of your visit.
Because it was in his nature and, some say, his kuleana as a descendant of alii to pursue the common good, Kenny Brown’s voyage of self-discovery grew into a series of cooperative enterprises that, for more than 40 years, have worked to protect Hawaii’s natural and cultural resources and to restore community health. “He was very much saying that Hawaiians were the most ancient and primal group still here,” says his wife Joan, explaining Brown’s belief in native Hawaiians’ potent and comparatively recent connection to place and native culture that the rest of the developed world lost long ago.
Most of us living in Hawaii are partial to easy, fast fashion. But having checked out designs and materials as we spring into a new season, we’re showcasing a new paradigm–indulging in the luxury of select fashion.
Food security, waste reduction and healthy fresh eating start at home and all in one place: your garden. Even if your yard is only as wide as a windowsill or as deep as a converted milk jug, here’s how to grow some of your own, with the help of chic new pets.
There’s a quiet revolution happening in the dirt, being waged with shovels, patience and purpose. It’s a rebellion against a broken and destructive industrial agriculture system, a reconnection to community and long-term productivity.
Cover Story / After retiring from public service in 2002, Ben Cayetano seemed to be taking it easy on the political scene–until 2005, that is, when then-Mayor Mufi Hannemann revived the long-lapsed idea of a Honolulu heavy rail project. Needless to say, Cayetano did not concur.
There’s a swell on the horizon. Listen closely and you’ll hear it…AUDIO INVASION 2012.
Cover Story / Late last year, a two-year-old organization on Molokai called ‘Aha Kiole o Molokai put a simple yes-or-no question to the island households: Do you support a “cruise tour industry” setting up on Molokai? Surveys were placed in island mailboxes and made available at the island’s one-stop social-services center, Kulana Oiwi.
Spring Arts / Wake up and smell the freshly painted roses, Honolulu. The official start of spring is around the March 13 corner, bringing with it a fresh scene in stage, music, visual arts, film and more.
Starting Jan. 1, same-sex couples in Hawaii are now permitted to join in civil union under new state law.
Hawaii is the world’s leading producer of genetically engineered (GE) seed corn, which is now our state’s number one crop, according to the Hawaii Department of Agriculture (HDOA), but few citizens fully understand what this means. The issues surrounding corn seed encompass everything from the labeling of foods containing GE ingredients (currently not required in the US) to land and water rights and local and organic food production.
“It’s a lucky man who arrives at his three-score and ten in good health, with good friends, and still loving his work, still mystified and enchanted by life,” says Garrison Keillor, host of the venerable, beloved Minnesota Public Radio show, A Prairie Home Companion. A sort of Midwestern variety show, it originated in Saint Paul in 1974, at a time when tickets cost a dollar and first audiences boasted a whopping 12 people.
It’s been a rollercoaster few weeks for Honolulu’s proposed 20-mile, Kapolei-to-Ala Moana elevated railway. First, a skittish City Council asked the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit (HART) to delay signing of a $1.4 billion contract with rail car company Ansaldo Honolulu JV due to concerns about its solvency.
“In Loving Memory of Robbie and Kalakekuewa, 1969–2011,” says the smooth-faced boulder in big, grey-paint letters for all to see. On the margin, scrawled above a petroglyph-style sketch of a paddler, is the name of a canoe club, Healani.
Joan Conrow The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) has been fighting for decades to get some $200 million in back-due revenues in return for the state’s use of so-called “ceded” public lands that were siezed from the Hawaiian kindgom upon the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani in 1893. And the state has been trying for decades to perk up the Kakaako area through redevelopment.
Most people in Hawaii have a system for surviving our state’s unique temptations and hidden dangers. A surprising number of people I’ve met never go in the water.
Given the city’s crumbling infrastructure and rail controversy, it’s hard to believe anyone would want to be the next mayor of Honolulu. But a few do want the job, including the incumbent, Mayor Peter Carlisle, the former Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney who won a 2010 special election to fill the remainder of Mufi Hannemann’s term.
I’d never been to a Honolulu City Council meeting until a few weeks ago. Features, not politics, was my beat.
Victoria Holt Takamine is a kumu hula, a cultural activist and a teacher and has an impeccable pedigree to back up all these titles. Born of an alii family whose kuleana was in Moanalua, she graduated as a hula teacher under the legendary Auntie Maiki Aiu Lake and taught hundreds of students in her own halau (Pua Alii ‘Ilima) and at the University of Hawaii.
On April 25, a state judge dismissed trespassing charges against a Kauai man after finding that he had been exercising traditional native Hawaiian rights hunting wild pigs on private land. Kui Palama, 28, was arrested on Jan.
The city plans to dish out $3.5 million from its Affordable Housing Fund and either purchase or renovate a structure to provide transitional housing for Honolulu’s special needs homeless population. “Our community has invested considerable effort and resources in addressing homelessness,” Mayor Peter Carlisle said in a statement, “but there remains a population whose disabilities or chronic conditions make it difficult for them to participate in traditional shelter programs.” Carlisle is referring to those homeless with mental illnesses, addictions and physical disabilities.
Makaweli Poi faces an uncertain future after its owner, a corporate subsidiary of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) ordered the West Kauai mill to suspend operations May 23. Mona Bernardino, chief operating officer of the corporation, Hiipoi LLC, says the move to shut down Makaweli Poi was prompted mainly by financial concerns.
A resolution adopted by the City Council will solidify an agreement between the City and County of Honolulu and the University of Hawaii Water Resources Research Center (UH-WRRC) to conduct an analysis of impacts from ocean sewer outfalls on the marine environments off of Oahu. The city will pay UH-WRRC as much as $2.5 million for biological and sediment studies in portions between now and June 30, 2017 .
Along with the deep, verdant growth of spring sprouts an unyielding desire to spend more time in the open air. That’s why it should come as no surprise that National Bike Month falls in the sun-drenched time of May.
Of the many letters you publish against rail, how many offer an alternative that won’t send us into further economic demise? Billions of gallons of oil are imported for us from every oil-producing nation on this planet so that we can buy billions of gallons of gasoline.
TheBus is taking a back seat to rail. At the May 3 Downtown Neighborhood Board meeting, an audience member asked city Transportation Director Wayne Yoshioka when we could expect the bus route cancellations and changes to be reversed.
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