Build Back to Fight Back
by Wayne Tanaka and Anna Chua | Reading time: 3 minutes
There’s no denying that Hawaiʻi has been taking a beating from climate change over the last several years.
Farmers have lost their crops to historic floods and ever more frequent droughts.
Families have lost their homes to ever more frequent wildfires.
Marine heatwaves have led to coral bleaching events, and our few remaining native birds species are on the brink of extinction as heat-loving, malaria-carrying mosquitoes invade their upland habitats.
And while Hawai‘i residents are also already drowning with an astronomical cost of living, substantially driven by our reliance on ever more expensive fossil fuels, we may have the comparative luxury of a few more years before true devastation hits. As we speak, our brothers and sisters across the Pacific are bracing for their islands, their homes, their ways of life to get swallowed by rising seas, and are fighting as hard as they can to stop this climate monster they had no hand in creating.
Now, the U.S. House’s passage of the Build Back Better Act takes us one step further towards having a fighting chance to hold the line against climate change, and make the investments needed to carry us through this climate crisis.
As currently drafted, the Act lays out a 10-year plan to cut the United States’ carbon emissions in half, including through the greatest economic investments in clean infrastructure, jobs, and subsidies that the country has ever made.
In addition to slowing, and hopefully stopping, the existential threat of climate change to our islands, the Act may also provide particular benefits for local families and our local economy. For example, Hawai‘i is particularly well-positioned to take advantage of the Act’s climate investments, with our renewable energy policy commitments, abundant supply of renewable energy resources, and clear need for updated energy infrastructure. Local, working-class families will be able to receive $12,500 towards the purchase of an electric vehicle, receive $7,000 towards the installation of solar panels, and realize the electrical bill savings that will result from increasing our islands’ portfolio of cheaper, renewable energy resources. And our already robust clean energy economy will get a huge shot in the arm, as local workers will be able to access the hundreds of thousands of sustainable, higher-paying green jobs that the Act will create.
The Sierra Club of Hawai‘i has accordingly worked with the National Sierra Club along with local partners to ensure that our Congressional delegation understands the importance of the Build Back Better Act, for our islands, for our communities, and for the planet. While Hawai‘i Congressman Ed Case had expressed reservations about the non-climate-related aspects of the bill, thanks to the hundreds of phone calls, e-mails, and letters submitted to his office by you, our members – as well as some last-minute mobilization by Sierra Club of Hawai‘i staff and volunteers – on Friday, November 19, he cast his vote along with Congressman Kai Kahele and 218 other U.S. Representatives to pass the measure!
The fight for a fighting chance against climate change is not over. The Build Back Better Act is now before the U.S. Senate, where additional hurdles and challenges may await. Please stay tuned for additional developments and citizen opportunities to push through this historic legislation, and ensure that the United States does its part to help save the world!