Sustainability in Hawaii, A Guitarist's Perspective

Sustainability

I attended the Sierra Club’s “Red, White and Blue Candidates' Picnic” on Saturday. Many of the candidates that spoke used the word, “sustainability,” in many of their short speeches. But what is sustainability? Why is this word so often used by politicians and environmentalists? According to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website, the definition of sustainability is, “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (EPA).” However, is this how the people of Hawaii would define sustainability?
As a musician, I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking about the words, “sustain” and “sustainability” and how I could find a metaphor for sustainability in Hawaii. What I discovered is, sustainability requires action and energy. For example, in order for a guitar player to achieve sustain, the guitarist will have to do something. Sustain means action. For instance, the great blues guitarist, B.B. King is known for his sustaining notes. With close inspection of B.B.’s left hand, you can see his hand wiggle back and forth. This action causes his notes to sustain. It creates more vibration, which causes the strings to vibrate even longer. There are other ways for guitarists to create sustain, but again, this means that there is action involved. A guitar player can use effects that work with the natural harmonics of the guitar to create a sustainable note. Similarly, Hawaii will have to use “effects” to create a sustainable community. The implementation of solar and wind farms would be like a guitar effect. It is an outside source being used to create a longer usable energy. A guitar player cannot depend on plucking a string and hoping that it will sustain forever, instead they must work at it, providing it with energy. This is what we need to do in Hawaii.
We often hear that in order to be completely self-sustaining, we will have to either reduce or eliminate the importing of food and oil. Our power supply would depend on wind, solar or wave technology. However, this doesn’t address importing gasoline for automobiles or trucks. I live in Haiku and it costs a lot of money to drive into town everyday for school. For Maui to wean itself off of gas-fueled transportation, we will have to rethink what our needs are. The new bus system is one possible solution. Not only could this reduce the amount of fuel needed, but it could also contribute to lessening the amount of traffic on the roads. All of these solutions are very difficult to implement. It is political suicide for politicians to honestly say what needs to be done in Hawaii. The cure is a bitter pill to swallow.
Sustainability is possible in Hawaii but it will require a lot of work. Reducing our needs for import demands a commitment and a possible paradigm shift from packaged foods and consumerism. This would also change our economy drastically. The big box stores, along with many other businesses would be in jeopardy. If we are wholly dependent on imports, we are at the mercy of outside forces, whether it is by nature or a man-made disaster. Sustainability requires action and a constant commitment. Hopefully, we can work towards a solution instead of waiting for a disaster to happen.

EPA “Sustainability” EPA



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