ROB PARSONS- Ambassador for the Environment in Maui County

[Music] good morning and welcome to the neutral zone it’s Monday morning and I’m Jason Schwartz the neutral zone is brought to you by okay I hope you’re hearing this commercial for the Maui miracle and our other sponsor donor is a cash for gold car mine alone this is Jason Schwartz I’m here with a wonderful guest today we’re the neutral zone and as you’ve already learned the neutral zone has a small little subscript that says we’re anything but neutral but we like to

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speak to everyone and be fair and open about discussing ideas even though it may be a political year when all the dust settles we are one and that’s the attitude that we carry with us I have a really interesting and fun guest today this is a gentleman that many of you know do you know Rob Parsons Rob welcome to our show thank you Jason great to me I was holding out my hand we were on Facebook lives they see me do things that are kind of animated okay Rob what would you describe I would say environmental coordinator assistant

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advisor to the mayor of Maui County what would you call yourself well I’m the Maui County environmental coordinator I’m now in my 12th year in that capacity it was a position that was originally created by mayor Arakawa a little bit closer if you can sure created by mayor Arakawa when he was first elected back in 2003 so I served then till 2006 and then came back when he was reelected in 2010 and been here since 2011 I used to serve on the 9th floor as an executive assistant to the mayor for environmental concerns

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and have since moved over about five years ago to the mayor’s office of Economic Development which is a wonderful place to be great things great team and I’m there because you know among the many many grants that they dispersed over a hundred grants come out of that office there are many that are addressing environmental protection issues so I have the opportunity to work with some of the conservation heroes of this Island Maui invasive species committee some of our watershed partnerships Maui Nui marine

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Resource Council Maui Julio Foundation people who are doing great on-the-ground conservation work and also like environmental education as well Maui Julio foundation teaches filmmaking skills to intermediate and high school kids and they make environmental films and that’s one of the many grants that comes out of our office okay so environmental coordinator does that mean you advised you don’t you’re not giving out any money you’re advising and directing things to be sure they are in

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your opinion responsible for the islands long-term health oh absolutely absolutely and there are a number of you know when people talk about how the county serves them there are many different departments that have grants the Department of Water Supply oversees about a dozen watershed protection grants the Department of Environmental Management Environmental Protection sustainability Division has a recycling grants pool of money I sit on that advisory board as well and then as I said in our office we have a whole

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section of environmental protection grants so there’s there’s millions of dollars that the county is investing into our future by protecting our natural resources by restoring our natural resources it’s it’s inspiring work on on our best days and frustrating because it’s a ponderous bureaucracy on other days that’s the nature of things in county government that’s well said you work for the mayor and he gets into all kinds of things that get controversial but the one thing

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that I know is you’re there in advisement right and so do you sit in on decisions when things happen you don’t always get things exactly as you might see them I would imagine but you put your two cents up how it works yes as I said I I did spend a number of years on the ninth floor a few years on the ninth floor and so was a little physically closer when meetings took place I’m now in a different building in one main plaza there’s a lot of county offices that are not in the county building and

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so there’s at least four different departments in in one main plaza we’re one of them so so tomorrow morning I have a meeting by example that one main closet with Stewart Stanton might miyamoto about freestanding water systems and some people said to me well why didn’t you go see Gladys bison well maybe but if you’re around I hope you can join us this gentleman coming they’ve been in all kinds of emergencies around the world and I keep thinking that freestanding self-sustained

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decentralized water has to be a really important thing on this island especially when if one wants to do conscious development or one wants to get all the water going back into the streams and figure out some way of making sense so this islands in the long run can have her view so I’m just openly mentioning by example yeah for clarification because we talked about this a little bit before we came on the air I’m you’re talking about basically a water from air machine we live we live in a very humid climate but even in less

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humid climates this technology is something that has been around for a little while and and continues to be refined so that rather than you know drill big expensive holes in you know to go to $5,000 you might yeah and in trying to tap an aquifer or mud you might own a unit for life and be self-sustained separate and it’s the same idea that a air conditioner or a dehumidifier is going to condense water as it operates and then you capture that water and you filter it and you’ve got some really

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pure water I know because I’ve done some testing on these type of machines so yeah that’s that’s really interesting that you’re going to be meeting with the gentleman representing that technology tomorrow and including the director and deputy director of our Department of Environmental Management which includes you know solid waste division wastewater division where they you know have millions of gallons of treated wastewater that’s some of its injected some of its used for recycled uses or

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irrigation so hey all of these new ideas fresh ideas and technologies that we can bring through our old ways of thinking I’m all for it it can only benefit us the good information so was I you know I’m trying to think of where to go I think although everything is broken out into different departments it all comes together that’s why Stewart stant was on our show with Mike actually a couple weeks ago but what I thought is these guys expressed a real openness just like you do to hear and know what’s going on

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because although things are in place they’re open to know as our needs are changing and expanding and that’s really thing do you feel you have an open kind of ear you know I mean a lot of people think that our mayor is so fixed sometimes in his positions that they don’t think he’s thinking but you find he is sensitive and listening to when you bring ideas in or does something shape I mean you hear all the criticisms I’m sure I imagine well I know I know what you’re addressing and you know I

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would just say that I’ve continued to have a good relationship with the mayor he can be adamant when he’s in support of something or against something and yet I think particularly on environmental issues you know not everyone but but a number of them and renewable energy issues he’s taken some leadership and I just returned from a better part of a week in San Francisco at the global climate action summit which is really the main reason we’re sitting here today I really am looking

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forward to having you share some of the the jewels that came out of that and and everything right the only reason I was bringing up the thing about the mayor is you know I think sometimes the newspapers do better to find something spicy and put a slant on it that makes it more controversial sells more papers but you have found that he is receptive and you know with all the things that he’s for now trying to do and go further I think it’s important for people to understand and know how someone like you

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has been an influence here and how again if he were to be on counsel for example I don’t know if he’d be on position with him but he’s been able to rely on you to go looking that’s what this conference is to me with all that’s going on where what was the ins who inspired this conference to happen it was largely inspired by California Governor Jerry Brown but he brought in some other key figures such as the United Nations environmental program it really was global leaders from you know across the

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planet and I think the number that I heard was about 4,500 people attended in San Francisco was great there were some very well-known people Al Gore spoke Jane Goodall jean-michel cousteau was there so this it was very focused on reducing carbon emissions and emissions there’s an omission in and how we’re addressing our emissions but but not just that there’s kind of a a broad list of what makes sense for moving into the future that that is going to include an ever-increasing population and we just

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you know we’re invested in the way things are but when you bring up you know just one new technology you know technology’s not going to save the world it’s going to help us make better decisions but we each can do something and you know I’ve talked a lot of people that feel oh you know it’s we’re screwed it’s hopeless we’ve really messed up our planet but I tend to be optimistic about some things I think it is very dire and we need to do much much more as soon as

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we possibly can but you know there’s there’s a great human spirit and ability to look at it you know the world around us and go I need to do something I’m going to do something there was a lot of people that brought that spirit to the global climate action summit these people that brought this would you say that there are leaders in there that will be heard by people I mean I’m for example here thinking when I think of leaders I don’t know how others define them I think about lucien Danai and al Perez and Mark

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Sheehan and these guys that have been and Rob Parsons holding the the banner for Responsible environmental solutions globally but surely by us being involved personally and I think that’s the message I hear from you yeah good of you to mention some of our real local heroes and people that I’ve worked with for the past 20 years and people that I count on because I know that they will do their homework and they will bring real accurate information to any topic of discussion they’re addressing and they’re advocates and at

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heart I’m an advocate and and I’m an information gatherer and I think that’s how you do it and that’s what you’re doing here today Jason absolutely providing a venue as you always do for people to share good information that can help others make conscientious decisions and how we address community issues and natural resource issues environmental issues and well thank you for noting that so this global conference would you say you could give us a couple of bullet points of things

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you think are significant that we should know or we could implement here I do my best I attended a number of sessions over you know four or five days I was there and I went on the mayor’s behalf the mayor stayed back because hurricane Olivia tropical storm Olivia was bearing down on us and he didn’t feel that it was the right thing to do to travel to California when there was some impending doom and you know it was so ironic Jason that he was not the only one there were there were mayor’s from South Carolina

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East Coast who said as soon as we finish this session I’m hopping on a plane I’ve got to get back before Florence hits before hurricane Florence hits and so it was ironic but poignant that people were not able to attend or had to leave a climate action summit because of climate events this is and and here’s one tidbit that I heard one of the mayor’s say because I went to the US Conference of Mayors meeting that day before and then I went to a climate mayor’s breakfast the first full day of the conference on

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the mayor’s behalf and one of those mayor’s said what we used to call an an aberrant event unusual event is now becoming the new norm so all over the globe you can pick up the newspaper and find that there are climate events happening and that’s the world we live in and the world that we really need to address well yes I think though as much as it all happens globally you know that was an old expression right think globally act locally what can we do I mean did did that come out of it I know

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that what are the mayor’s do they are responsible and have people like you helping steer the rudder what other things do you see that we can do I handed you a card before we started that has a number of mayor Arakawa sand and Maui County’s climate actions on it and for me this was just a way to tabulate and just just remind myself before going to this conference that we have done some things here that are putting us on the right path one of them was just about a year ago mayor mayor and I went

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to Oahu drove all the way out to Waianae because the Hokulea was in Waianae Harbor berth there and on the deck of the Hokulea the four County mayors signed a pledge to go 100 percent clean transportation non-fossil free transportation by 2045 and they further pledged to have the county fleets get off fossil fuel by 2035 and if we don’t set these kinds of goals we’re not going to get to them and actually when we when when energy commissioner fred riddle and i went to the mayor’s office to talk to

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him about participating in this pledge and he says I don’t think it’s enough soon enough he says why don’t we do 80 percent by 2030 so he wanted to up the ante but that’s funny I heard that about Donald Trump about the travel ban that he chose the he chose the one with the least restrictions they gave him eight choices and the the one that was the most freedom he chose and that’s an interesting thing to see like who’s advising so alan arakawa is an environmental advocate in europe yeah

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and renewable energy advocate and you know one that one of his visions is a consolidated base yard each of the departments that needs supporting vehicles and equipment has their own base yard here and there and some years ago in the council’s budget he made a proposal to purchase land and why kapu to consolidate that have a county base yard there where they could share resources share you know mechanics equipment things like that and one of his great ideas that I hope will be implemented sometime in the near future

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is to have a solar charging facility for electric vehicles there so as the county of Maui transitions their vehicles from fossil fuels to electric vehicles you’ve got solar PV and battery that can recharge them and it doesn’t have to be grid connected so this would you know yeah as we know Hawaii has the highest percentage of fossil fuel electric generation in the nation and people tend to forget that but we’re burning about a million gallons of diesel at our malaya generating station every day yes we do

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have a lot of wind power integrated but we’re still burning a lot of fossil fuel and so unless you have your own solar PV if you’re just plugging into a charger at a shopping center or parking lot that’s coming off the grid and that’s generated in large part by diesel generation at the malaya station so no gain if you will well no gain in our carbon footprint input yeah and and you know a lot of the discussion at global climate action summit was how will we reduce our carbon emissions how do we progress towards

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carbon neutrality there were pledges being made throughout the entire summit there Jerry Brown led a under two degree pledge you know the Paris Accord has implored the nations of the world to reduce emissions so that we don’t raise the temperature of the planet any more than two degrees over the next 50 to 100 years and many people said that’s that’s still too high we should pledge to cutting emissions so that it won’t raise any more than one and a half degrees hotter any incentives

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that have a thought about our talking about besides tax credits any other things yeah you know one of one of the things that I found compelling is that there were actually protests when when I went the first day the the streets were filled with sign waivers and people chanting and it was very difficult to get into the venue the Moscone Center south in San Francisco which was walking distance from where I stayed in downtown San Francisco and it was I saw it on the news that night someone said only in

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America would there be climate protesters at a climate action event and there was some irony there but I also got what they were frustrated about and they were frustrated that it’s still corporations that are calling the shots and corporate lobbyists who are persisting with trying to get more fossil fuels out of the ground whether it’s oil shales or the the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge or a gas pipeline there are still some really big corporate entities that you know want to do things the way they’ve always

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done there there’s a pledge to step away from coal any new coal excavation and any current coal generating plants then there was discussion from the leader of the National afl-cio said hold on not so fast if you just say that we’ve got to stop all coal use now you are going to bankrupt these communities throughout America that have been built on this for generations and their pensions are going to be in jeopardy and their economies are going to crash so there was some thoughtful discussion on the

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implications of every step that we take you often heard our elected leaders say well I’m not ready to vote on this yet because I’m unsure of the unintended consequences and you know while I can appreciate that it also drives me a little bonkers because oftentimes I would say to them there are consequences if you do nothing and some things take well no that’s the really big point isn’t it I mean I’m gonna change subject for a second but when I hear about the water table gonna be ray going up and

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that all middle of Kihei is planning I mean all the things that we see as beachfront are gonna be somewhere starting the new Atlantis they’re going underwater so I always wonder about that where do we how do we do the right thing because the intended consequences may not be for now they may be for later like you just said how do you deal with that kind of stuff do you have that kind of stuff come up at you yes I have a pretty direct answer to that and I think that we can follow the the model that our partners over on the

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island of Oahu set up a couple of years ago they put forth a charter amendment that people voted on in the November election in 2016 that said should we establish in the mayor’s office of the City and County of Honolulu should we establish an office of climate change sustainability and resilience and voters by about two-thirds majority said yes within the past year I don’t think they’ve even been in in place for a year and a half this office of climate change sustainability and resiliency has gone

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gangbusters they are doing great work they’re addressing these kind of threats sea level rise is one of them but there are many many others and I think that we could in the new administration that will be taking place here in Maui County starting next January we could implement those kind of actions which is have people directly addressing the threats that we know are coming our way we don’t know how soon but I mean if you pick up the Star Advertiser today the cover story and photo is someone on North Shore Oahu

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who’s lived there since 1965 that’s looking at a big chasm because of the coastal erosion that’s 20 feet from their house and they’re saying the state’s not doing enough we’re gonna take a commercial break or we don’t call them commercials here and we’ll be back in a couple of minutes and with Rob Parsons on ke aku the neutral zone I’m Jason Schwartz eight eight and a half FM Facebook live Maui neutral zone calm let’s get to see who has got something to say hang on

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together call today two four two seven six six one or visit our website Pacific cancer foundation org [Music] Maui youth now show focusing on youth culture today this weekly half-hour show it’s produced by and created for you taking the pulse of youth culture from an island perspective watch local news turn events fun challenges trending videos game reviews and learn about other youth in your community new episodes air on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. on aqua 255 or catch us on Vimeo the gene editing tool CRISPR offers new

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approaches to fighting disease where instead of designed drugs that one might have to take every day if you live with a genetic disease could you use CRISPR to actually correct the mutations at the level of DNA and remove those mutations that cause disease in the first place the promise and possible consequences of rewriting genomes on the next big picture science [Music] well hello again this is Jason Schwartz someone just said to me the little angels here 88 and a half is not 88.5 there is no half in radio there’s a

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point five 88.5 FM kak you the voice of Maui I’m Jason Schwartz and you can find us up on the Facebook all over the web you can find all the shows including this one on Maui neutral zone calm and we hope we’re creating a library of issues and people that will be valuable to you to revisit after the day we’re here I was talking with Rob Parsons about this thing that he gave me that I think he’s gonna put up on the web so you can get it it really is very good it informs us of where our power comes from

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it breaks it down for us and it also has different things again about climate action that we have been doing here in Maui County I am gonna ask a funny question were you the one to lead on a lot of stuff or did you find ideas came to you mostly in what you know things that are going on here I mean you mentioned the mayor’s environmentally you know conscious which is great but I mean some of the things that we’re doing you told me like he was aggressively did things that are you know he he’s not afraid to

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be a leader and take the risk of having someone squawked if he believes in it he does it and I appreciate that you know that’s what leaders do so that’s a good thing with all the input like you talked about our environmental heroes there are a lot of things on here that the government has done was this have you seen private sector action and environmental things I know you say you’re an economic development is that a big part of our economic development future it sure is before I went to this summit in San

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Francisco i sat with energy commissioner fred Redell we are so fortunate to have someone of his character and experience serving in that role and after we presented you know what we could sense was going to be taking place at this global climate action summit and Mary initially wanted to go however you know with the impending tropical storm and also there was a clean energy conference held on Friday in Honolulu and he was set to go and speak on that with Fred well mayor stayed here here there were still storm

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things to deal with and Fred went and gave the mayor’s presentation but for those reasons the mayor didn’t go to San Francisco but he felt it was important to be represented there so I went on his behalf and before we left that meeting in the mayor’s office he said to us well you know we’re doing all of these things because they make good environmental sense but they also make good economic sense and that’s the bottom line for you know a lot of the people not all but we do live in a world where economics you

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know is a very guiding and motivating factor on political levels and international levels and so now that we have seen that clean energy is not just competitive but in many cases is preferable to fossil fuels like coal is never going to be what it was because it used to be the cheapest alternative and that’s not the case at these conferences they talk about the retraining of all these people obviously the cold play people it’s gonna go into history those towns unless they get retrained well it

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can’t be forgotten and you know in in our office we we do many many things and one of them is Workforce Development and you know we also have a film Commissioner we have agricultural specialists we do events like the Friday town parties and made maui county festival we have you know just a lot of specialists in different areas and you know one of them is is job training and work with Meo that that provides the core four classes that basically tells you how to write a business plan if you’re

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interested in starting your own small business and work with Maori economic development board they help co-sponsor our energy conference that we’ve held for the past five years and so we’re strong in our partnerships and we do a lot of things has the power as the county and again I’m just fishing ever reached out to any of the private companies here that could function as a bank to finance I want to say acceleration of different environmental programs that could be here and could be

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we could be an example to the world of what happens when you put in all these systems to be self sustainable in our remote location for example at a and B or I dare not say the word Monsanto but I mean it a and B Monsanto Goodfellow people deep pockets that on their financial statements could put together resources available and could provide I almost say loans and really help encourage some of these things to move forward does any of that is that something that is done at the county or is that yeah I’m I’m gonna take it back

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to the the global climate action summit and there was the CEO of the Unilever who was on stage at one point and and I was a little skeptical I’m going wow I mean of all corporations to choose here’s somebody who has a tremendous amount of reach and I don’t know how many countries I didn’t do the research but there you know and it’s usually when they’ve been in the press that I’ve read it hasn’t been good press but it seems that the CEO was earnest and sincere in implementing sustainability into the

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core of their practices and these things don’t happen overnight but because of the predicament that we’re in that we have created as Al Gore likes to remind us humans created climate change and we can change our actions to counteract it you know he’s up people yeah when did an inconvenient truth come out a 2000 or 2001 so I concurred that we’re not doing enough and we’re not acting fast enough but so did Unilever come out with anything that said we’re gonna step up and they made a number of pledges and

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I don’t I don’t have the exact ones here but I think that was the nature of your question is is what can those that that have some clout and whether or not they’re doing all of what we think is the right thing how can they contribute to the overall solution and and what can they do here locally because in my mind the county a lot of people look to the government to solve the problem when I looked to the private sector of someone that recognizes their problem and they have unique ability to be an important

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resource to move it forward they’ve been such a strong center of the island that a and B and HC&S with some of these larger players that have the financial capacity just on their value of land to do things that move a few decimal points and they’re able to take advantage of credits and really help here is that a government role or has the government taken that role to ask some of these private sector people to be more involved than that my answer would be it’s a it’s a government

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role and a community role and obviously that private sector that that has the ability and has the land and has some financial wherewithal it’s you got to find some way to well get innovative leadership as part of it and collectively understand you know there’s there’s a lot of educational outreach you know we’re in our comfortable bubbles of what works but and and sometimes it’s too shocking to to give hard facts to people they go oh no I don’t even want to hear that it’s

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you know yeah that’s a comet isn’t it yeah yeah it’s a ostrich head in the sand syndrome it’s it’s difficult to hear the scenarios that are laid out by those who have told us that we we’ve got to take action because of you know the 400-plus parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and we continue to spew out more and more and more emissions and you know one of the things that came up in conversation is we can do all that’s in our power to drive hybrid vehicles electric vehicles

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to write a bicycle or jump on the bus and hopefully we’ll transition to electric buses but in one event Kilauea spewed out so much emissions over three and a half months that you know we just look at if I switched from my gas card to to a hybrid was was I doing enough right and the same is true with the wild fires we’ve had our you know the the wildfires that that were devastating to West Maui to those families who had to evacuate and some lost their homes and possessions and their way of life and

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then that’s happened on a much much larger scale in the western United States and other places around the planet so those emissions we can’t do as much about I think what the area of focus that needs to be given equal time or more time is in sequestering the carbon that’s already in the atmosphere and we have sequestering meaning well one of the points on this Maui climate Maui County climate action 4×6 card that I handed you says about halfway down it says Carbon Farming / reforestation the

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mayor supported acquisition of a very large parcel the old Vaughn temps key parcel up in upper Kula that’s 3274 a KERS on the slopes of Haleakala for reforestation and carbon sequestration so in in replanting what is right now an open pasture and if you’re down country you can look up towards Lula Pollock with that part of the mountain and you can see that there is a swath there that’s not forested it’s very visible to the naked eye from you know most parts of this island so there is discussion of

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reforesting that with natives systematically having school classes come in and take a section and then then there you know invested in it it’s funny to me I don’t know how funny it is when you’re saying all this it reminds me in 1990 I want to say four I went to the middle of advocator New Mexico and a little ranch there’s a guy named Paolo lugar II and and Gunter Pauli now these were guys out in the middle of nowhere Gunter Pauli is the head of the zero emissions Research Institute now based in San Francisco you

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may have seen him at the conference here the weekend possible but way back when powell lugar ii was a professor in columbia at the university and there was us he wanted to do something about the carbon footprint and they were carbon emissions way back then they credits I don’t know if there’s still around where countries could get credits if someone else did carbon sequestration they would be able to do more their burning and irresponsible things in their country so in Brazil there was a

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major reforestation effort and the Gaviota out in the middle of nowhere unbelievable hundreds illy I don’t want to give numbers hectares acres of land reforested created a product to make the best turpentine created in a village created better health through water that came off trees so many of these things that’s many year I can’t almost believe it so many years ago and when we’re doing things now I’m glad it’s on the list but I just wonder what can we do to speed up our action we seem to know

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what’s going on for a long time and although our current president may not have acknowledged that most everyone else I know is acknowledging global climate change is there anything more we can do I mean I’m glad to hear these things are going on well getting back to what you said earlier Jason what we can do is act locally and that can be on a very individual basis gentleman named Paul Hawken who is a very well known and regarded author was a keynote speaker at a conference I went to last October in

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San Diego it was the annual meeting of the urban sustainability directors Network and that was a it’s a it’s a group that’s been around for about ten years that Maui County recently joined the other three counties in Hawaii are also members and and so we were actually the only state fully represented when we went there last October well Paul Hawken as keynote speaker was talking about his new book which I highly recommend to everyone who’s listening and and their friends and their family and everybody

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it’s it’s called drawdown it’s he involved 200 some scientists and asked for their best scientific studies and their best ideas and strategies for drawing down the carbon that’s currently in the atmosphere and as I’ve said before everybody’s talking about reducing emissions and nobody’s doing it fast enough so these pledges are great we need these pledges if we’re going to achieve them we’ve got to set our goals and you know some people say they’re not ambitious enough we’re not acting fast

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enough they may be realistic goals because we can’t do it overnight but at the same time I think we need to really emphasize all the ways that we can draw down the carbon that’s in the atmosphere the that’s the name of the book Paul Hawken is not the author but he compiled it and it’s it’s beautiful all the strategy had there things that are like empowering women is one of the ways you know globally that will help us draw down more carbon it’s just you know through education through thank you for

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mentioning that yeah through through how we deal with food production and how we deal with food afterwards you there’s been a statistic circulating recently that I keep hearing that 40% of the food that’s raised and the US doesn’t get consumed for one reason or another and it could just be its it could be its cosmetically not going to make it you know an apple with a bad spot on it is not going to be the apple you pick when you go to the supermarket so things we’ve we’ve tended to raise foods that

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are cosmetically good they may not be the best nutritionally and if you look at those heirloom tomatoes they’re all goofy shaped and funny colors but they’re you know delicious and good boy nutritious yeah right so we we don’t currently have the ability with our State Department of Health permitting to do broad commercial composting of food waste and I think that that is one of the things that could benefit us and through a recycling grant that we awarded a couple of months ago there are folks out in West Maui who

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are establishing a business plan and looking for a location to do exactly that to do green waste composting that can also include food waste which would give it a nutritional boost so you’d have nutrient-rich compost and not just you know woodchips or mulch that’s good to hear that’s really that’s good to hear so this global conference I may not I want to go back to that because that was really a lot happen there things there that gave you a real strong impression give me your head I mean I know that you

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had a general impression and came away with with things that you’d really want to share so I want to give you that platform well thank you you know who made a big impression on me as jane goodall who’s well known for her work with the chimpanzees in the last century and since then she’s become a spokesperson for the United Nations environmental program and travels some 300 days of the year speaking and just sharing her wisdom and oh my gosh does she have some wisdom and she has such a calm presence and she just speaks

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so clearly and she’s got a sense of humor she’s 84 years old she had a sit down that I attended with with Alec Baldwin in a smaller theatre not the big convention hall and then next day she was on the big stage as well and you know she’s been out of the jungle since I think the 1990s although her work continues with with some of the primates there but she said things change significantly when she went up in an airplane and saw all the clear-cutting that had been done around the forest

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where she was working and she was she was absolutely shocked so she spoke to the solution of keeping forests in place and that’s nothing new that we’ve been talking about don’t cut down the rainforests but she shared a statistic that still to this day we are losing for us at a rate of one acre per second one two three four five acres of forest just was lost here Jason how can this be you know it’s you know it’s it’s hard to fathom and then we’re not just losing trees we’re losing the ability sequoia

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to sequester carbon we’re losing their ability to hold soil in place all the plants and animals that are yes beyond every living species that they supported and that supported each other so that’s that’s some big stuff there and you know reforesting is great but we you know she’s invoke very clearly things that are there stay there right right so how does everyone react to that well we know now we can get water from the air power from the Sun we can plan communities leave forests where they are used other

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excuse my work crappy I would like to say that in radio land and make it good land we can do things now with our technology did we hear any translation of that and you know that promises anything well I I want to continued on the the forests and rainforests with the topic by by including that there were indigenous people represented at the conference they they reached out they brought people there and reminded us that the indigenous people around the world have learned to live in harmony with the resources around them they’re

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not going to use too much they’re going to use just the right there they understand the the nuances of what’s growing there of the of the the weather and the you know plant planning with the moon and just all of these you know it’s it’s indigenous wisdom but it’s really a different level of science it’s a science of observation and adaptation and that was poignant as well you know here in urban America or any big city around the world we tend to forget that we are connected with every

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other living thing on this planet we sure do forget so that’s why I guess I asked the question kind of the way I’m asking it cause and those of us that are aware of it are aware that we can make planning we’re on an island and so again we’re limited on what we can do but I don’t want to get off in a tangent but there’s lots of areas we can do without taking down our forests and I’m really glad to hear the idea of reforestation was in the mayor’s craw I mean I can’t

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even tell you I have had that pledge in 1994 with Paulo lagari and Gunter but never had a way of implementing that’s what I talked to you about wanting to be somehow in touch with players I’ve been sort of marginalized because before when I was green I was considered radical and that label is still sort of there but it was never and it’s you can see it’s not radical at all it was just time to take some actions we hear that in politics now sometimes they get angry but I just want to see more aggressive

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contemplation you’re talking about an economic development yeah Jason if I may I don’t know if your listeners know that you’ve been involved for a very long time in just raising the level of conversation on this island to make sure that that there are issues and topics that are in our conversation and not forgotten and boy back almost twenty years ago when I was abducted by aliens who told me to run for office and I mean that’s the only explanation I could give it back no that that’s I say that in

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jest but it seems like a lifetime ago that I ran for council and then two years later round for mayor and I did so be as I felt very strongly in my gut that we needed a voice for certain issues we were losing our beaches at a unprecedented rate back then to development Paulo Waya Beach was kind of a heartbreaker for many many people when we sold seven out of nine Lots and now you know we have an acre that the county owns but it’s just kind of like pathways yeah I mean the mega mansions and but at

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that time you gave voice to political candidates by offering to film a video that could then be shared on ikkaku and I yeah I don’t know if your listeners know that but you just gave voice to people who really want to make a positive difference and you know without inserting your own agenda in any big way you just made it happen and I want to say Mahalo for that I appreciate that I am I do I appreciate that I used to think that when industries would come here they would see me here in Maui and

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wouldn’t have to bring in their you know heavy hitters from the mainland but in some ways I’ve been bypassed in some ways and I’m very much appreciating that you’ve noticed because that has been what I’ve been doing and it’s been my commitment a lot of years we got a couple of minutes two minutes to go what would you like to leave our listeners with or things that you might want to share with them that are important well gosh I mean it’s an election year we haven’t really talked

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about that but I would say register to vote and go out and vote you know I mentioned Paul Hawken earlier and his book drawdown he said one thing at the USD an annual meeting that I attended thatthat stuck with me he’s he’s going through this book and list of solutions for pulling carbon out of the atmosphere he said there’s no solution that’s too small and so I would pass that on and just say you know we can feel like this is such a daunting task to to turn around the ship in the middle of

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the ocean here and get it to go a different direction than the one that we’re sailing on and whatever small steps that we can take individually and as a community those are the right things you know the alternative is is do nothing and and that’s not working so well I appreciate that I also want to appreciate and acknowledge you you have been a champion and although like you say we were both doing the same kind of advocate thing you’ve been in an important role and right there swinging

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for us all thank you for all that you’ve given and all that you’ve served all these years you’re welcome make good things happen with you and your family I’m so happy to say that we are at the end of our show and we’re gonna have more shows with Rob in the future at the Maui neutral zone thank you all for joining us today Mahalo elevate your Thursday nights with