Clean Energy Here, Safe Communities There

Mālama I Ka Honua  |  April-June 2017  |  By Will Giese, UH School of Public Administration Intern

When I was twelve, my mother took me and my younger brother to our first protest. Many of the defining moments in my life revolved around demonstrations, protests, and civil disobedience. I got detention for condemning schools for their continued use of offensive Native American stereotypes. I spent my last dollar going to the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. I almost ran myself off a cliff driving an ATV around the mountains in Tennessee collecting data to prosecute natural gas companies for unsafe drilling practices. I marched with thousands women and men around Hawaiʻi’s capitol on January 21. Moments like these are defining to me in the same way they are defining the thousands of people who participated in protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline across the globe.

As of February 23rd, 2017 all of the protestors across multiple  camps have been forcibly removed after the Trump Administration signed an Executive Order to “review and approve in an expedited manner” the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). This comes after the Standing Rock Sioux’s three year fight against the project and 10 months of Native American tribal leaders, environmental activists, civil rights groups, and communities protesting around the world in opposition to the construction of DAPL. DAPL negatively impacts millions of people by threatening their primary drinking water source and their livelihood, while slowing progress towards a sustainable world by continuing the reliance on fossil fuels.

For me, this is an astounding example of citizens banding together in common cause for the protection of our planet. The water protectors faced militant police forces and risked their personal safety to stop the construction of a dangerous and regressive fossil fuel pipeline.  And for many, it marks the beginning of another terrifying chapter in American history for the  public’s wellbeing, civil rights, and the environment.

But how does this affect us in Hawaiʻi, 3,600 miles from North Dakota?

Hawaiʻi has an aggressive plan to steer us away from these types of fuels, yet our state still generates over 75% of its energy from petroleum. While our state institutions work to bring us closer to this goal, special interests and the status quo thwart these efforts at every stage. Projects like DAPL transport oil across the country  which ultimately ends up here in Hawai‘i where it is used to generate our electricity. Hawaiʻi’s reliance on fossil fuels threatens the safety and health of thousands of communities that live near oil transport pipelines and fracking sites. Locally, our institutions continually work against our interests by funding these types of projects.

First Hawaiian Bank is one such offender. Claiming to “help build stronger, healthier communities” yet engaging in activities that harm. Through a series of deceptive and convoluted corporate mechanisms, FHB takes our money and puts it right into DAPL. FHB’s parent company, BNP Paribas, has invested over $400 million in this project. The Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi has asked FHB to put their money where their mouth is by divesting from the DAPL project and any other fossil fuel infrastructure projects by the end of 2017. To date, almost $2  million has been pulled out of FHB because people like you believe that building stronger communities happens everywhere, not just Hawai‘i.

To me, protesting isn’t only standing out in the cold, screaming at the top of my lungs. Protesting is a means of taking action and of unifying separate interests towards a common goal. For the people of Hawai‘i, protesting DAPL and standing with Standing Rock is more than going to North Dakota. We stand with Standing Rock every time we choose to take the bus instead of drive, when we divest from banks with dirty investments or when we go to a shareholder meeting and stand to say “No! This is not okay!”

Standing apart from each other when deciding whether to drill for more oil, to blow the top off another mountain, or construct another gas-powered generator makes little sense. We all must live here together on this planet. We don’t get another one. We should not be deciding where to dig for more oil, but how to live without it. We should speak out against those who would say otherwise, regardless of where we are.

DAPL construction may have been completed and the camps emptied but we will continue to stand in unity with communities around the world to protect the Earth from the interests that threaten it. We will continue to press our institutions to divest from fossil fuels, we will continue to move toward renewable energies, and we will continue to challenge those that try to suppress the voices of the people.