On Saturday, August 24, citizens concerned with the threats of climate change will hold a demonstration at the Waihe’e Coastal Dunes & Wetlands Refuge of projected impacts on Maui for future generations if current trends of global warming continue at the current pace. Volunteers will take part in two activities:
ACTIVITY ONE: 12 Noon –2 P.M.
Volunteers will take cuttings from indigenous plants to place into pots for future plantings as a safeguard against soil erosion; and,
ACTIVITY TWO; 2:00 –2:30 P.m.
Volunteers will carry colorful batons and encircle the wetlands to demonstrate the area to be tainted for wildlife should saltwater encroach as the sea level rises.
ACTIVITY THREE; 2:30–3:30 P.M.
Scott Fisher, Conservation Director of the Hawaiian Island Land Trust, will comment about the threats and impacts of climate change on the Waihe’e Coastal Dunes & Wetlands Refuge. Senator Brian Schatz will follow with comments about the projected effects on Maui and the Hawaiian Islands in general. The senator will follow his remarks with a PRESS CONFERENCE open to Q & A with the media. Mr. Fisher will be introduced by M. J. Yardley, co-leader of the OFA Maui chapter. Sen. Schatz, a former environmental activist with the UH Sea Grant Program after leaving college, will be introduced by Ted Clement, Executive Director of HILT.
This demonstration has been arranged by Organizing for Action (OFA) Maui, a living extension of President Obama’s 2012 campaign pledge to combat climate change. On August 1, four former directors of the EPA under the Republican Administrations of Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushs I and II, published a collaborative editorial piece in the New York Times lending support for President Obama’s June climate action plan. “The costs of inaction are undeniable. The lines of scientific evidence grow only stronger and more numerous. And the window of time remaining to act is growing smaller; delay could mean that warming becomes ‘locked in.'” Rather than argue against his proposals, our leaders in Congress should endorse them…”
Keith Echeverri, OFA Maui Media Liaison & Climate Reality Leadership Corps activist, 276-8915
