I commend HEATED for this article. We need to hear more from indigenous Hawaiians who understand the history of exploitation of people and land that has made wildfires like this possible.
Aug 13, 2023Liked by Emily Atkin, Arielle Samuelson
Thank you so much for writing this. I lived in Maui from 2014-2016. Kaniela Ing was our representative in the Hawaii State house. He is a force for good with a deep passion for and knowledge of Hawaii - though obviously his ideas are applicable to our approach to climate change all over the world. I hope you will follow up with a more in depth interview with him.
I can't get the image out of my head of the clean-burned village of Lahania rebuilding a greener version of itself, more locally controlled, based on indigenous values, like a the mythical Phoenix bird rising from the ashes. It's like the layers of colonialism have been wiped clean, allowing a deeper healing of the land to emerge over time, and by that I mean an ecological time that provides a way for the web of life to return from the refuges in the mountains to reclaim those wetlands as we humans find our ways to rejoin the earth communities we are a part of and have forgotten how to live with.
Maybe the wildfires such as this and so many others shouldl be seen as nature's version of the Vietnamese monks setting themselves on fire to shake us out of our global capitalist dreams and get us to start looking around us to see that we're part of the earth's web of life and figure out how to hook ourselves into the only truly regenerative forces that last, whether we're in a countryside, a city or anywhere in between.
Follow-up on Lahaina water. Naomi Klein has written about "disaster capitalism" for years. Now she and Professor Kapuaʻala Sproat detail how forces are using "plantation disaster capitalism" to deny native Hawaiians their water and land rights. On August 7th Hawaiians got a new permitting system that the community hoped would restore public control over water. On August 8th the fire destroyed Lahaina. On August 9th the governor passed emergency proclamations that suspended the new state water code. Here are links to an article in The Guardian and an interview this morning on DemocracyNow!
I would like to hear more about the effort to deflect the disaster capitalists and instead return the land to the native people and restore the wetland and sacred places. Probably the stolen water rights are enshrined in current law, and stolen real estate ownership is also. The disaster is so unfair, so tragic, and so clearly linked to colonialism and theft of land and water rights that maybe it can’t be ignored. If successful, this could be a model for other places. (Emily, if you have that superpower, you might want to take down the comment containing the “CO2coalition” climate denier link.)
Thank you for writing this. It's always baffled me when climate change deniers suggest that somehow humans are not capable of influencing the Earth on the required scales. The scope of impacts that humans have had at the ecosystem level is ridiculous, especially related to agriculture, forestry, mining, and urbanization.
Great and timely piece, thank you. I agree with the substance, but the Wired article you link to seems to have the timeline wrong. Sugar barons arrived in the mid-nineteenth century, not the dawn of the eighteenth. James Cook didn’t even make first contact with ancient Hawaiians until 1778. Lots of harm done in an even shorter time than Wired suggests.
Two days ago Kenneth Ing gave a 22 minute interview to Amy Goodman on DemocracyNow! https://www.democracynow.org/2023/8/11/maui_fires He was followed by Noelani Ahia, long time native activist and organizer in Lahaina. She was interviewed for 12 minutes. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/8/11/noelani_ahia_maui_wildfires Finally, Clay Trauernicht, expert on Hawaiian wildfires, explained how climate and changes in vegetation fueled the fire. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/8/11/hawaii_maui_clay_trauernicht_tropical_fires
I commend HEATED for this article. We need to hear more from indigenous Hawaiians who understand the history of exploitation of people and land that has made wildfires like this possible.
Thank you so much for writing this. I lived in Maui from 2014-2016. Kaniela Ing was our representative in the Hawaii State house. He is a force for good with a deep passion for and knowledge of Hawaii - though obviously his ideas are applicable to our approach to climate change all over the world. I hope you will follow up with a more in depth interview with him.
Thank you for writing this!!
I can't get the image out of my head of the clean-burned village of Lahania rebuilding a greener version of itself, more locally controlled, based on indigenous values, like a the mythical Phoenix bird rising from the ashes. It's like the layers of colonialism have been wiped clean, allowing a deeper healing of the land to emerge over time, and by that I mean an ecological time that provides a way for the web of life to return from the refuges in the mountains to reclaim those wetlands as we humans find our ways to rejoin the earth communities we are a part of and have forgotten how to live with.
Maybe the wildfires such as this and so many others shouldl be seen as nature's version of the Vietnamese monks setting themselves on fire to shake us out of our global capitalist dreams and get us to start looking around us to see that we're part of the earth's web of life and figure out how to hook ourselves into the only truly regenerative forces that last, whether we're in a countryside, a city or anywhere in between.
I had no idea about this terrible history. Now, I am even more angered and saddened.
Follow-up on Lahaina water. Naomi Klein has written about "disaster capitalism" for years. Now she and Professor Kapuaʻala Sproat detail how forces are using "plantation disaster capitalism" to deny native Hawaiians their water and land rights. On August 7th Hawaiians got a new permitting system that the community hoped would restore public control over water. On August 8th the fire destroyed Lahaina. On August 9th the governor passed emergency proclamations that suspended the new state water code. Here are links to an article in The Guardian and an interview this morning on DemocracyNow!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/17/hawaii-fires-maui-water-rights-disaster-capitalism
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/8/18/maui_wildfire_sirens
I would like to hear more about the effort to deflect the disaster capitalists and instead return the land to the native people and restore the wetland and sacred places. Probably the stolen water rights are enshrined in current law, and stolen real estate ownership is also. The disaster is so unfair, so tragic, and so clearly linked to colonialism and theft of land and water rights that maybe it can’t be ignored. If successful, this could be a model for other places. (Emily, if you have that superpower, you might want to take down the comment containing the “CO2coalition” climate denier link.)
Thank you for writing this. It's always baffled me when climate change deniers suggest that somehow humans are not capable of influencing the Earth on the required scales. The scope of impacts that humans have had at the ecosystem level is ridiculous, especially related to agriculture, forestry, mining, and urbanization.
Great and timely piece, thank you. I agree with the substance, but the Wired article you link to seems to have the timeline wrong. Sugar barons arrived in the mid-nineteenth century, not the dawn of the eighteenth. James Cook didn’t even make first contact with ancient Hawaiians until 1778. Lots of harm done in an even shorter time than Wired suggests.
Thank you for featuring Kenneth Ing. I was wondering if he talked about the role tourism played in this?