Wayne’s Sierra Club World: We Need a Plan

By Wayne Tanaka, Chapter Director | Reading time: 7.75 minutes

"Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that."  - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I don’t care if you hate him. You get extra, you go and share with your neighbor." - Uncle Mac Poepoe

Last month, an Office of Management and Budget memo sparked an ongoing wave of fear and uncertainty, as it suspended all federal grants and contracts to implement executive orders concerning spending on "Marxism", "DEI," "woke gender ideology," and the "Green New Deal," among many others.  

While the memo has since been revoked, its implications reach much farther than its threat of immediate economic turmoil  - and how we choose to respond, or not, may alter the course of our society for decades to come. 

To be clear: across-the-board federal funding disruptions, even a pause, will cast millions of workers into financial insecurity - workers who spend the money they earn in their local economies, who provide vital societal functions ranging from childcare to watershed protection, and many of whom support the needs of families and others who likewise drive our economic engines and enrich our social fabric.

But the continued pouring of fuel into an earth-scorching culture war - one where things like "Marxists" and "DEI hires" are being blamed for the growing daily struggles of everyday folks - signals a larger, and much more insidious strategy. Dividing the United States population through a campaign of scapegoating, gaslighting, and persecution is making it all the more easier for industry groups to dismantle any regulatory barriers to corporate profits and power mongering - and endanger us all, regardless of political beliefs or identity.

As we've seen with Red Hill, with Lahaina, with the Kauaʻi floods of 2018, crises and disasters don’t discriminate. Cancers and reproductive harms caused by PFAS or trichloroethylene don't care who you voted for. The industry-driven defunding of federal disaster preparedness and relief programs that interfere with corporate "disaster capitalism"; the deregulation of environmental and public health protections against industrial pollution and contamination; the boosting of oil drilling and methane extraction - all will serve tremendous profits on a platter to corporate interests. And all will cause widespread tragedy and devastation, whether from the immediate impacts of the next megafire or pandemic, or from the cancer clusters that will manifest 10, 20 years after chemical companies are once again allowed to expose us to their profit-generating carcinogens.  

The strategists behind the OMB memo and underlying executive orders know that by scapegoating "Marxists" and LGBTQ+ people for real and made-up problems, the outrage, hatred, and fear they foment - on both sides - will keep us from coming together to stand up to these corporate agendas, in a moment in time when we need each other more than ever before.

If there is anything we must take away from Red Hill, Lahaina, and other recent crises and disasters, it is that we need each other - all of us - to truly confront and overcome seemingly overwhelming odds. Red Hill would not have been ordered shut down by the Pentagon, if it were not for the contributions of people from all walks of life: Republicans, Democrats, keiki, kūpuna, hotel workers, doctors, sovereignty activists, military families - and to a tremendous degree, members of the LGBTQ+ community, Kānaka ʻŌiwi, and working moms, among others. Lahaina fire and Kauaʻi flood survivors were likewise able to pull through because Hawaiʻi people remembered that what is most important is our intrinsic connection to each other, as human beings, and not as politically manufactured labels.  

We must remember this lesson in particular, if we want to both protect our people and social fabric, and confront the even greater existential threats now unfolding as a rapidly rising corporate oligarchy deals its final blows to our fading democracy, and our dying planet.

So what can we do? How can we push back? How can we prepare for the greatest of humankind’s challenges ahead?

I . . . don't know. 

But here, maybe, are some ideas, to build the foundation for what may be a final push to save our humanity, and our grandmother Earth:

First, we must remember that perhaps the most important thing is to aloha kekahi i kekahi. To love one another, across and regardless of our differences - whether in identity, or ideology. Those who can, must commit to being a steady hand in this time of instability - building and holding space for all, including and especially those most vulnerable to the scapegoating and McCarthyist witch-hunts and persecution that the OMB memo has foreshadowed. 

We must also endeavor, with patient and loving two-way communication - if possible - to speak up and ensure that our friends, neighbors, colleagues, businesses, churches, and other community groups remember this lesson as well. Transgender people are not driving up egg prices; Marxists are not fleecing you at the gas pump while raking in billions of dollars in government subsidies and tax breaks for Big Oil. But a person pulling you or your loved one from a fire, or sharing their supplies after another devastating flood, may very well be someone who understands, from their own personal experiences, of the need to treat people as human beings regardless of what they look like, or what they believe. 

And we will need as many of us as we can bring together to talk about, understand, and ultimately confront the true forces of planetary destruction that are using this moment in history to create an oligarchy of unprecedented power and control. 

Second, we need now, more than ever before, storytellers, artists and poets and musicians, to reinforce our sense of humanity, of connection, and of love - the greatest assets we will have in this existential fight. If history has shown us anything, the humanities will be our best defense of our humanity - and will be among the first targets in a campaign for ideological purity and restricted speech.

So we must be sure to take extra care, to defend and exercise the freedoms of expression that will be our first and last lines of defense against a concerted and growing effort by the powers that be, to dehumanize and divide us against ourselves. 

And this does not include just published authors or recording artists, but all of us - including you. Sharing your own story of your own experiences, hopes, and dreams can be far more powerful than a thousand-dollar Instagram ad buy. 

If you are willing and able to share your story of how any of this is impacting you, the ones you love; your fears and hopes for our islands, our planet, or our future; your reflections of gratitude for the good in others; or anything else that can help us remind each other that we are all flawed humans who are nonetheless worth saving - please do so - including with the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi. We can use what platforms we have to help turn your stories, paintings, poems, and songs into beacons of hope and resilience and shared struggle for so many others - and will be sure to keep your contributions anonymous, if you desire. Reach out to us, anytime, at hawaii.chapter@sierraclub.org.

Finally, remember and remind those around you that we have in our islands' cultural foundation the very social models, science, language, and values that provide an alternative to the dead-end exploitative and extractive policies and assumptions that are destroying our environment, our social fabric, and our children’s future. 

We can still feed more than a million Hawaiʻi residents without a dependency on imported foods and disintegrating supply chains, using traditional regenerative models of agriculture and ʻāina stewardship. We can protect our life-giving wai from being contaminated and hoarded by the powerful, by enforcing the culturally-grounded and legally mandated public trust doctrine. And we can reverse the prejudices and systemic injustices that are tearing us apart, with a shared ethos of aloha, kuleana, and kaiāulu still ingrained in so many keiki o ka ‘āina, the children of these islands. 

As an increasing number of Western and indigenous scientists, cultural practitioners, and everyday folk have recognized - our best and last chance truly rests in our ability to pivot away from our recent patterns of self-destruction, and toward the proven models of sustainability, intergenerational responsibility, and care that these islands taught and are still trying to teach all who call Hawaiʻi home. 

But this will require shared commitments, organizing, and action - for restorative justice, for systemic change. And so we at the Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi and our allies in this struggle will continue to endeavor to right the historic wrongs that have imposed upon our Hawaiʻi nei a society that values money more than love; that treats people and ʻāina as commodities; and that creates and exploits a fear and hatred of the most vulnerable, to protect the most powerful.

In the end, this is not a hard choice to make: either we do it - or we don’t make it.

If any of this speaks to you - then please reach out, and join us in our push towards a better future of sustainability, justice, and love for each other - and for this pale blue dot we call home.

This month’s Wayne’s World was based on discussions with and reflections shared by Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi staff, who are tirelessly dedicated to a hopeful future for us all.