Under One Canopy: Gore and McKibben Inspire TOC members

By Kau‘i Lucas

April brought more than showers to Hawaii shores.  Some of the worlds leaders in addressing Climate Change visited the islands, as well.  UH Sea Grant & Sen. Brian Schatz brought together national and local leaders to develop, promote, and finance sustainable solutions to the problems we face in Hawai‘i along with key stakeholders from government, industry, academia, the private sector, on April 15th to recommend specific action steps.  Presenters included former Vice President Al Gore and US Senator Barbara Boxer.  The following week Bill McKibben, author, environmentalist, and founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement, spoke to a packed house, at UH Art Auditorium.  Gore and McKibben were both passionate and fact filled.  Gore, ever the politician, sounded the alarm more gently than McKibben, but one fact both shared was this stunner: The total amount of man-made global warming pollution surrounding the planet and the atmosphere today now traps enough extra energy every 24 hours to equal the energy release by 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs going off every single day. (http://cnsnews.com/news/article/gore-energy-release-equal-400000-hiroshima-atomic-bombs-going-every-day)

Not surprising then that the take home message was: we can win this, but we ALL have to take action NOW.