Climate Fairs 2023
The Hawaiʻi Climate Commission, in collaboration with the City and County of Honolulu and Hawai‘i County, hosted a pair of Climate Community Fairs May and June.
The Climate Fairs were learning-based, integrative, and collaborative spaces for people to gain knowledge of the available resources in their communities. Diverse organizations and programs will have booths, workshops, and games to share. The focus is on what is being done to create a resilient and sustainable Hawaiʻi.
The fairs, at the State Capitol on May 20 and at the Hilo Civic Center Auditorium on June 17, will help communicate the extreme urgency of acting on climate change in a way that spurs action.
State Climate Change Coordinator Leah Laramee, said, “Homes impacted by sea level rise, wildfires and floods have disconnected communities from essential services. Extreme heat is going to have serious impacts on health, especially for keiki and kūpuna. We have the solutions to address this and can build a resilient economy while supporting green infrastructure, build up local food production, restore soil health, improve transportation services, and build fewer roads.”
Fair organizers say Hawai‘i residents can integrate traditional knowledge into actions while advancing technological capacities. Laramee added, “We are no longer at a place where we can slow roll our actions, we need systemic change now. Investing in climate action will pay dividends in the future. The more we do today, the more effective our actions, the more money we will save and the better off our communities will be.”
“The Climate Community Fair will showcase the many organizations that the climate commission is working with and the many collaborative activities underway that are making a difference. This is a great opportunity to learn more about how we each can reduce our carbon footprints, create more resilient systems, and meet other people to work together to mitigate the effects of climate change such as sea level rise,” said Dawn Chang, Hawai‘i Climate Commission co-chair.
“The fair is all about empowering people to act on climate change. Our hope is people will walk away feeling confident about the climate actions they can take. Climate change impacts every aspect of our life,” Laramee said.
Hawaii Island - Hilo Civic Center Auditorium - Saturday, June 17th, 2023 - Keith Neal, Ron Reilly and Noel Morin
Oahu - State Capitol on Saturday, May 20 - Paul Bernstein, Matt Geyer and Jaymen Laupola
From Paul - To encourage participants to visit the various booths at the Climate Fair, the organizers had a raffle. To enter the raffle, participants had to visit at least five organizations. Each organization was given a different color pen, which was used to sign the participants' raffle cards. Once a participant had five signatures, they could submit their raffle card in hopes of winning a new bike or other prizes. The Climate Fair had about 15 tents with ours being the only one housing multiple organizations, which symbolized our mission to work with other organizations and build partnerships. We had about 50 people visit the HECA/CCL/HYCC tent. These people were treated to an overview of HECA, CCL, and HYCC. For HECA, Matt handed each person three beans and asked folks which task forces interested them. For CCL, Jaymen and Paul explained the virtues of carbon cashback and CCL's other legislative priorities - electrification of buildings, healthy forests, and permitting reform. After the explanation, participants were asked about their level of concern about climate change. Unsurprisingly, everyone was very concerned. Hopefully, this concern translates into some new volunteers. Overall a fun event and great to spend time with friends in an effort to protect the environment.
Kauai Climate Fair at Kauai Community College (KCC) on Earth Day
From Helen Cox - Kauai held its climate fair at Kauai Community College (KCC) on Earth Day and had a very good turn out. Participants visited tables set up by numerous county and state climate and environmental groups such as the Kauai Climate Adaptation Plan and KCC's apiary program and UH's Sea Grant projects. Once they had visited the tables, they were rewarded by pizzas made by one of KCC's chef and volunteers and cooked in the college's recently acquired outdoor bread oven.