Posted on: Thursday, May 19, 2005

EDITORIAL
Hawai'i can do its part on global warming

Although Hawai'i produces relatively few "greenhouse gases," it has — or should have — an abiding interest in reducing global warming.

The Islands are particularly vulnerable to climate change, rising sea levels and other phenomena associated with global warming.

So it is heartening that Big Island Mayor Harry Kim and Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa have joined a national pact of municipal leaders pledged to get their communities to meet the standards of the Kyoto Protocol, even though the United States as a nation has not signed on.

Such pledges are important because they signal that the threat of global warming is being taken seriously and that there is something we can do about it.

It also signals that we do not have to wait for an all-encompassing "solution" to global warming. A constellation of lesser changes in use patterns and increases in energy efficiency will go a long way toward lessening the impact of global warming in the decades to come.

At that level, Hawai'i can surely help.