Governor Josh Green this week spoke at the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Summit to promote urgency in advancing climate change mitigation strategies and preventing future disasters like the August fires on Maui that killed at least 97 people.
Kamehameha Schools students in attendance opened the panel session with an oli, later presenting the state’s second Voluntary Local Review (VLR) to attendees in ‘Olelo Hawai‘i.
The report, published earlier this year, provides a comprehensive overview of Hawai‘i’s progress and challenges toward meeting the U.N.’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals designed to create a prosperous future for humanity.
“The leadership displayed by the students from Kamehameha Schools is nothing short of remarkable,” Green said. “Their dedication to sustainability and their role in presenting the second VLR in ‘Olelo Hawai‘i to the United Nations is a testament to the bright future of Hawai‘i and the global community.”
The overwhelming majority of Hawai‘i’s presence at the event, however, focused specifically on the importance of local leadership to achieve the goals by 2030. Under the backdrop of the West Maui fires, Green pleaded with other local leaders to act now — both for Hawai‘i and for themselves.
“The fires that came, they came to us in the form of a fire hurricane,” Green said. “Winds were 74 miles per hour on the tail end of a hurricane and swept through our town of Lahaina in 17 minutes. The speed, the heat — it destroyed our local communication systems, our water system and all of our above-ground power infrastructure. And so I can tell you, as an elected leader, I don’t want to see this happen to us again, or to any of you.”
Green continued, emphasizing that without significant global changes made, the frequency of such extreme weather events will only increase.
“We no longer anticipate the destructive events of climate change,” he said. “We are now fully enduring them as a people and a world.”
Green noted that Hawai‘i faced six fire disasters in August alone — the same amount the state had faced in 50 years, between 1953 and 2003.
Green also emphasized that the issue extends far beyond Hawai‘i, noting this summer saw major wildfires appear in Algeria, Greece and Canada, where smoke clouds blanketed approximately 70 million people thousands of miles away.
Additionally, from longer, stronger and more frequent droughts to melting ice caps and marine heat waves threatening extinction for keystone aquatic species, Green stressed that climate change is a global crisis.
“Let me say this very clearly — there’s no town or city or human community on Earth that is safe from this extreme weather that’s fueled by climate change, which is why we must deliver on these sustainable development goals,” Green said.”
In a commitment to move Hawai‘i closer to meeting U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, the state in 2014 launched the Aloha+ Challenge, identifying six priority goals and local metrics, from increasing use of renewable energy to reducing solid waste and protecting watershed forests.
“The devastation on Maui has taught us that we have to urgently commit ourselves to a higher standard reflected in our Aloha+ Challenge and the United States SDGs. … And just let me say this — Ben Franklin said, ‘We all must hang together, or we will hang separately.’ That is true of climate change. We’re in this battle together. We fight for the future of humanity,” Green said.
“We fight for the future of humanity,” Green said.
Another tactic designed solely to scare people into submitting to useless control over their lives. Green is an MD and politician who seems, like so many, incapable of reading & understanding the real data and instead has bought into the phony CO2 = pollutant & nasty greenhouse gas. MDs, like Green, are notoriously poor researchers and simply prefer that you shutup and listen to their drivel. Here’s what a real physicist had to say about CO2:
Edwin Berry, a theoretical physicist and certified consulting meteorologist, said IPCC’s core theory is that natural CO2 has stayed constant at 280 ppm since 1750 and that human CO2 is responsible for the 140-ppm increase.
This IPCC theory makes human CO2 responsible for 33 percent of today’s total CO2 level.
Here’s the problem with that IPCC theory.
The public perception of CO2 is that it goes into the atmosphere and stays there. They think it just accumulates. But it doesn’t. At a constant level, the outflow equals the inflow.
A 140-ppm constant level requires a continual CO2 inflow of 40 ppm per year because, according to the IPCC, CO2 has a turnover time of 3.5 years.
So, divide 140 ppm by 3.5 years to get 40 ppm per year.
A level of 280 ppm requires 80 ppm of inflow. So, IPCC’s claimed human carbon dioxide level of 140 ppm requires 40 ppm per year inflow, which is 33% of the total carbon dioxide inflow.
But even IPCC says human CO2 inflow is only about 5 percent to 7 percent of the total CO2 inflow into the atmosphere.
So, because a human-caused CO2 inflow of 5% to 7% cannot support IPCC’s claimed 140 ppm human-caused level, the IPCC instead claims human CO2 has a turnover time of hundreds to thousands of years.
The IPCC is saying something is different about human CO2 that keeps it from flowing out of the atmosphere as fast as natural CO2.
IPCC scientists should have asked the simple question: ‘Is a human CO2 molecule identical to a natural CO2 molecule?’ The answer is yes.
Well, if human and natural CO2 molecules are identical, their turnover times are identical, or 3.5 years. So, the whole idea where they say it’s in there for hundreds, or thousands, of years is impossible.
Therefore, IPCC’s claim that human CO2 causes all the CO2 increase is climate fiction.
Too bad Green and others lack the capacity to understand this simple logic. They also seem to completely miss the fact that plants use CO2 as food and in exchange provide us with more oxygen through transpiration. Green et.al. also lack any grasp of geologic/cosmic time frames or processes…something humans cannot alter or change. Climate cycles have been happening for billions of years.
RSW
It’s always nice to blame something else for actions taken by Big Sugar Companies that created the fires in Lahina. Let’s be honest Gov…. That abandoned land was ignored and left fallow to become the death trap that it was. In my opinion , Whomever was the owner of that land…. should be held to account. Apparently the land was owned .. the question is by who?
“Climate emergency” is Democrat-speak for fleecing taxpayers out of $75 TRILLION. Utterly insane. Utterly unnecessary.
CO2 makes up only 4% of greenhouse gases and humans contribute only 3% of that percentage. Humans make up only a very small amount of the whole (0.0012%) 90% of those gases is water vapor. So should we instead ban water vapor? CO2 in an integral part of the cycle of life. Plants recycle this gas into oxygen. A healthy plant depends on three factors of sunlight: quality, intensity and duration. All life depends on healthy plants that provide a robust crop to feed a hungry planet. A warmer planet causes water to evaporate creating clouds to moderate the planets temperature and precipitation to provide lifegiving sustenance to thirsty plants, animals and humans. CO2 is the basis of the air we breath, water we drink and the food we eat. Without CO2 we would die along with the rest of the planet. So, do I believe that man made global warming is a hoax? take a moment to step back away from the fear mongers and do your due diligence objectively (do your own homework) then make up your mind. “The truth will set you free”!