Wayne’s Sierra Club World: Apathy is Killing Us, and Action is the Antidote
By Wayne Tanaka, Chapter Director | Reading time: 5 minutes
“Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you are the one filming it.”
As the Los Angeles fires continue to burn, leaving death and devastation in their wake, it is hard to imagine anyone not seeing this as a wake up call to the existential crisis that humankind is facing - and the earthly hell that we are all but guaranteeing our children, grandchildren, and future generations if we do not take transformative and radical - but common sense - action in the next 5-10 years.
If social and mainstream media coverage of the immediate devastation are not enough to convince some, however, the ripple effects of these and similar recent and near future climate-related tragedies will soon wash upon our islands in so many other ways.
Our current insurance crisis and by extension, our affordable housing challenges, will be exacerbated as the global reinsurance industry - which Hawaiʻi relies upon - continually attempts to shore up its losses, in turn greatly increasing premiums, reducing coverage, and pulling out of disaster-prone areas.
Ever more vast federal resources will continue to be redirected to disaster response and recovery efforts in California and other places hit by ever more frequent climate catastrophes, weakening the economy our islands also greatly rely upon.
Health insurers and national medical infrastructure will continue to be strained as the immediate and long-term health impacts from the fire and others like it - including the extremely toxic smoke and ash blanketing the landscape - manifest in the years and decades to come, increasing costs and reducing opportunities for local residents to access critical healthcare.
Our food security and food affordability will also be threatened as the farmlands we import our food - already struggling with record heat and droughts - continue to be impacted by the 2025 and other recent wildfires, including directly or by soil contamination from toxic drift.
And the other form of toxicity - desperate scapegoating and misdirection of blame by those unwilling to accept our planetary emergency, including the Big Oil corporations that carry the most responsibility for this crisis - will continue to pervade and pollute the national and local discourse, driving us further apart in a moment in history when we must all pull together.
Again, the unfolding tragedy in California just over one year after our own in Lahaina is not the first and will be far from the last, or worst, devastating climate event we will see in our lifetimes. However, it is a clear wake up call that there is no longer a neutral position on climate action. Either we take a collective stand and pivot, hard and fast, away from the societal addictions and dependencies that are driving us to oblivion, or we stand idly by, and allow our children, grandchildren, and generations yet unborn to witness the end of the world as we know it.
Perhaps taking climate action may not manifest in the changes we would like to see. But doing nothing, and letting politics and economics as usual continue to slide, will assure a future of untold destruction.
As we look into 2025, here are some things that we can do to uphold our kuleana to our islands, the planet, and to our children, grandchildren, and the generations that may follow.
Learn and share - with your networks, on your social media, at the dinner table, and with your friends and coworkers and neighbors and community organizations - what climate destabilization is doing and will do to the people, places, and things that we love and care about. No matter what field you are in or what someone is interested in - health, housing, the economy, the environment, national security, immigration, human rights - climate destabilization will increasingly become a matter of existential emergency. Remember as you share what you learn that stories - real and speculative, songs, poetry, and art can be just as if not more impactful as data.
Search out and convince others - your employer, your professional or social affiliation groups, your religious institution - to continually demand changes from policymakers and elected officials that will hold polluters and their enablers truly accountable to the devastation they have wrought upon us. Avoid false solutions that place the burden of climate action on everyday individuals, particularly the most vulnerable, while leaving Big Oil - including the petrochemical industry and industrial agriculture - unscathed.
Participate and convince others - individuals and organizations - to engage on issues that can build a resilient foundation for our future generations, including equitable access to clean water, sustainable and regenerative local agriculture, and a shared understanding of the need to care deeply for one another, and the ‘āina that sustained, sustains, and will sustain us.
Top of mind issues include: establishing remediation standards and demanding the timely cleanup of the Red Hill fuel and chemical spills; opposing the siting of landfill above our remaining drinking water resources; restoring streams, watersheds, and traditional ‘āina stewardship for water security, food security, and fire resiliency; defending the Land Use Commission and its role in protecting public trust resources, local food security, affordable housing, and other critical long-term needs from short-sighted legislation; demanding that the state invest in what we truly need - water management, biosecurity, local agriculture - rather than continue selling out our children’s future to deep-pocket corporate campaign donors; demanding that the Department of Defense use its resources to tackle the greatest threat we have ever faced; and ensuring that government decisionmakers and political leaders understand the fundamental changes we need to make on the local, national, and international levels. Join our mailing lists at sierraclubhawaii.org/subscribe for alerts on how to engage on these and other immediate issues, and support our work organizing for a truly hopeful future at sierraclubhawaii.org/donate.
As we embark on a new year, no matter who or where you are, the most important thing you can do is to take action. Apathy is killing our islands, our democracy, and our planet - and citizen action is the antidote. Let 2025 be the year that we all pledge to no longer stand on the sidelines, but to take up our kuleana as the last living generations that can prevent the loss of human society and humanity as we know it.