Rapidly burning wildfires have spread through the Hawaiian island of Maui, destroying the historic town of Lahaina and killing at least 36 people, leaving many homeless and causing thousands to evacuate. People were jumping into the Pacific Ocean to avoid the flames and wildfire debris, as strong winds from Hurricane Dora passing to the south, […]
HuiZero, Hawaii’s first zero-waste to-go container program, has just launched at participating restaurants across the island of Maui. The tins are food safe, easy to clean and infinitely reusable, making them ideal for an island chain like Hawaii. HuiZero’s mission is to help eliminate single-use plastic and curb plastic pollution across all the Hawaiian islands, […]
By Andrea Germanos Hawaii is poised to become the first U.S. state to declare a climate emergency after the Legislature’s adoption Thursday of State Senate Concurrent Resolution 44. The bill “acknowledges that an existential climate emergency threatens humanity and the natural world, declares a climate emergency, and requests statewide collaboration toward an immediate just transition […]
Kilauea, a large volcano on the Island of Hawai’i (or Big Island) and one of the most active in the world, erupted Sunday night following a series of earthquakes, CNN reported. The eruption sent lava shooting into the air, along with a huge cloud of ash and steam. Hawaiian officials urged residents to stay indoors […]
A team of scientists has created the first-ever aerial map of the coral reefs surrounding the main Hawaiian Islands, in a breakthrough researchers hope will assist reef conservation in the islands and beyond. The map, written up in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences article Monday, was able to show the geographic distribution […]
By John R. Platt It takes a lot of effort and more than a little bit of luck for researchers like André Raine to get to the remote mountaintops of Kauai, where they’re working to save endangered Hawaiian seabirds from extinction. First you need a helicopter capable of reaching sites more than 4,600 feet above […]
By Dana Drugmand Hawaii has officially joined the fight to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the climate crisis. On Monday the City of Honolulu filed a lawsuit against 10 oil and gas companies, seeking monetary damages to help pay for costs associated with climate impacts like sea level rise and flooding. The lawsuit, filed […]
By Brett Walton Defying a vote of the County Council, Maui Mayor Michael Victorino said on Oct.18 that he will not settle a Clean Water Act lawsuit that holds national implications for water pollution permitting. Instead of the settlement that the council authorized last month, Victorino prefers to have the nation’s highest court decide whether […]
By Lorraine Chow Kokia drynarioides is a small but significant flowering tree endemic to Hawaii’s dry forests. Native Hawaiians used its large, scarlet flowers to make lei. Its sap was used as dye for ropes and nets. Its bark was used medicinally to treat thrush. But Kokia drynarioides — commonly known as Hawaii tree cotton, […]