HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0372.104 2024-2026COUNTY CLERK
COUNTY OF HAWAI'II
RECEIVED
Tim:I�B2r
Date
Testimony for the Hawaii County General Plan
By someone with common sense and eyeballs, not a political agenda
I do not have a scientific degree, but I consider myself a very scientifically minded
person. My entire life has been spent working in scientifically driven fields based on keen
observation and monitoring — recognizing patterns, documenting changes, and adjusting
approaches to anticipate and meet the demands of those changes.
I also consider myself an observant person with general common sense, a logical mind,
and good judgment. I've held many positions in many fields, and I want to share a few of those
experiences with you.
I grew up in various states throughout the Mountain West and have watched weather
patterns change over a lifetime. My elders would talk about how things used to be. As a kid, I
dismissed that sort of thing — just old folks being old folks, complaining about the weather. But
maybe I should've listened better. Some areas became wetter and more unpredictable. Other
places never saw the same rains or winter snowpack again.
I've ridden out heatwaves that followed me across state lines, setting all-time records for
weeks on end. We chased the fires that inevitably ignited in their wake. I've spent weeks in
consistent 117°F heat, packed into a hotshot buggy with no A/C, with crew members throwing
up from the conditions. Over 10 years I watched fire seasons go from 3-4 months, to 7 months,
to 9 and now they are year-round in many of my former duty locations. If you ask any wildland
firefighter that's been around a while, they will tell you that the same tactics that were effective
for 100 years now do nothing to stop a fire. Fire intensity and frequency is out of control. The
SOPs developed over decades are no longer valid. Science is being rewritten. I have been on
numerous fires now that burned over a million acres. Those records continue to be broken year
after year. I have watched fires jump the Columbia river where it is 2-miles wide.
When I worked as a military contractor running ranges at the Yakima Training Center, we
stopped getting our winter snowpack and would regularly set our training ranges and impact
area on fire, putting contractors and military personnel at risk extinguishing the flames amongst
UXO and interrupting or eliminating proper readiness in training for deploying units.
I've been involved in agricultural research, farming, and ranching for most of my life. I've
watched crops wither. I've seen rivers supporting salmon migrations and canals diverted from
them, alike —dwindle into murky brown ribbons of water, too hot and polluted to support salmon
fry or fertile land.
In Central America, 1 witnessed record droughts kill livestock en masse. I watched the
city of Santa Rosa, and the towns of Calistoga, Napa, Ukiah, and others in California, burn to
the ground. I saw the fuel types shift in a single fire from chaparral to the absolutely
unprecedented "nuking" of once -lush and humid forests of coast redwood. When that didn't
satisfy the fire's hunger, it ran through banks, shopping plazas, grocery outlets.
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I remember from"the 1=5-fre'Ge lay, looking down and seeing loaves of Love's bread sifting
neatly in rows, unscathed, perfectly legible on a shelf, visible through a gaping, charred hole
where the corner of a grocery store used to be.
I stood on a hillside, trying not to weep, staring at melted aluminum car rims that had
flowed across the pockmarked asphalt of a new housing development's cul-de-sac. All that
remained were 7,000 chimneys standing alone where homes used to be.
Two years later, I was back there. Fighting another fire. The Tyvek wrapping was still on
the new homes being built to replace the ones that had just burned. The brush was already
growing back — faster than it could be cleared — right next to these unfinished homes.
I watched my ranger district in Washington bum and burn. It was once a lush,
timber -producing area on the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains. But it was over -logged,
overgrazed — and then the weather changed. The temperatures soared, and they never went
back down. Hundreds of massive fires stripped away the remaining timber. Forest Service
silviculturists replanted patches here and there. But those burned, too.
The streams that once supported beaver and salmon dried up completely. The ones that
still carried water smothered salmon eggs with silt and ash from erosion off fire scars. The
ever-expanding open ground bakes in the sun. Valley walls now reflect that heat back onto
themselves. Invasive cheatgrass and desert plants dominate the expanding scorched earth. A
problem made worse by the compounding, interlinked, and rapidly accelerating changes that we
are only just beginning to grasp.
I worked as a climbing arborist in New Zealand, and my coworkers had similar stories.
There, the demand for arborist work outpaced supply due to trees dying from drought stress.
New pathogens were spreading — the result of shifts in rainfall and temperature as Te Araroa's
many microclimates rearranged themselves.
I hitchhiked across Australia and watched the whole east coast burn as weather patterns
shifted. Rainforests that hadn't burned in tens of thousands of years went up in flames. If you've
ever seen the film FernGully— that is exactly the same rainforest I watched bum, just as the
movie depicted.
What's even more heartbreaking: I took a job on a liveaboard dive boat on the Great
Barrier Reef, out of Cairns, Queensland. I watched as the largest and most diverse reef on the
planet went from vibrant color to stark white, lifeless calcium carbonate tombstones. I watched
algae coat and smother the staghorn coral. Then that, too, died. Only a slimy film remained.
Having front -row seats to the first major global coral bleaching event really put it into
perspective. They have happened regularly ever since on a worsening scale, now
encompassing all the world's oceans.
This isn't just anecdotal evidence. We do have scientific models. We do have definitive
proof, and towering sums of evidence, data, and statistics. And yet, somehow — it's being
ignored. Somehow this has become a political issue, when there is absolutely no room for
division on it.
It's so strange to watch entire groups of people lash cinder blocks around their ankles
and step to the edge of the boat — parroting political rhetoric that makes no sense. A rally cry of
self-destruction. Bent on taking the whole ship down with them.
I'm not a scientist, but my grandfather is. A stern Republican farmer, born and raised in
West Virginia. For years, I watched him succumb to the same political indoctrination and parrot
the dismissals which I still hear echoed today: "It's a natural cycle." "If it's global warming, why is
it so cold?"
Eventually though, even surrounded by climate change deniers — even with family and
peers repeating the same lines — he started to notice. He'd worked the same land for decades.
He had the memory, the observations, the firsthand data. He watched things struggle. Yields
shrink. Inputs increase. And slowly, even he came around. Because the changes became
undeniable. As a Forester and former logger, he noticed the changes to his hunting and
camping grounds of 60+ years. As an entomologist, he saw it in that realm as well.
I feel similarly caught in the middle of this identity crisis.
I graduated high school in Wyoming. I work on my own vehicles. I grew up hunting,
fishing, and riding bulls. I'm a Marine combat veteran. None of these things are considered very
"left -leaning." That's my point. If a West Virginia hillbilly and a kid from Wyoming can use their
senses and critical thinking to see past the politics and get to the bigger picture — so can
anyone.
So here's my ask:
If you're reading this, remove yourself politically from the issue for just a moment. Think
back to when you were a kid. Are things the same as you remember? Ask your elders what
they've noticed. If you're not sure — do a simple Google search. Look at a graph. Talk story with
people in scientific fields. Better yet, talk to people involved in matama 'aina here in Hawaii. Talk
to land managers. Talk to fishermen. Talk to people who must stay connected and pay attention
to the land and sea to do their jobs.
There are bills on the table — right now — that would enable us to move forward with
green energy, wildfire protection, and the funding we need for climate resilience. And yet again,
science is being sidelined.
Please don't let short-term politics win out over long-term survival. The future of our
'aina, our forests, our waters, and our keiki depends on it. Please do not also fasten that cinder
block to your children and grandchildren's ankles. The ship is sinking, like it or not. Looking the
other way will not stop the water from rising. We live on an island that is slowly sinking while the
tide is coming in. We need to start thinking about life rafts.
Mahalo for your time and consideration.
-Tyler Munson
Human Being @ Planet Earth