Zowie

March 26, 2007
     For all of you out there disposed to twang on me for riding a jet airplane all the way to Maui, please consider that United flight 35 would have flown from San Francisco to Maui with or without me on it. Here's the deal: I had to go to San Fran to give a talk at the Commonwealth Club. From there, I had a lecture gig on Maui. I stayed three extra days and nights -- since I'd come all that way. So, sue me. Now, to the business at hand, which is my impressions of Maui.

     Beautiful as much of it may be, it is hard not to view it through a tragic lens. Most of the damage on Maui has been inflicted over the past 30-odd years -- that is, since the Pepsi Generation got their mitts on the island. Certainly, there were massive prior insults, starting with the first landings of the Haole (foreigners, in particular caucasians) in the late 18th century, the introduction of cattle, eucalyptus trees, the mongoose, the monoculture of sugar cane, and other intrusions that upset the island's ecology. But the boomer-hippies really iced it.

     Those who managed to stop smoking marijuana long enough to string two consecutive thoughts together grokked the related notions of tropical paradise and land development with predictable results. That is, they turned the place into just an annex of California. The flatlands were allowed to develop along the lines of Fresno or Lodi, while the uplands became Pacific Palisades Lite. The longest stretch of the best beaches in the place with the least rainfall was converted into a strip of jive-plastic supersized resort hotels. The automobile was given first dibs in all civic design matters.

     The island's beauty has not been entirely defeated, but the usual complaints are heard for the usual reasons -- mainly, that the overwhelming majority of buildings, both residential and commercial (including the big hotels), are graceless industrial sheds, deployed artlessly on over-engineered streets, which has conditioned the public to believe that all man-made things are worthless pieces of shit. This in turn conditions the public to believe that nothing man-made can be ultimately beneficial, which makes it impossible for us to imagine coexistence with the rest of nature, and so on into the usual swamps of suburban dialectic.

     The terrain, of course, has largely determined the situation with the car. Maui is mostly composed of two rugged mountains, and cars have made it possible for people other than farmers to settle the slopes. Without motor vehicles, a person living up in Makawao, maybe two or three thousand feet above sea level, would be lucky to get down to the main trading town once a month, let alone to a job every day. But work-a-day Maui operates just like work-a-day California, and all the associated norms of behavior are in place. You drive everywhere for everything.

     As far as I could tell, even the educated locals out in Maui today are consumed with the same trivialities about traffic and "density" that you'd hear back in any mainland town. They are not thinking beyond the usual NIMBY issues. But it seems perfectly obvious that Maui life will change drastically in a future of oil-and-gas scarcity. The commercial airlines are the "canaries in the coal mine" of advanced industrial civilization, and they are very sick canaries right now -- even with the price of oil relatively stable the past six months.

      The airlines have pared down their employee ranks about as far as possible. The scene at the Maui airport this Sunday was a clusterfuck -- largely due to the fact that United airlines had only one person manning the ticket counter, and 98 percent of the visitors have to check through luggage. A couple more rounds of oil price spikes and the airlines are going to be lying tits up with glazed eyes. Perhaps aviation will then reorganize itself on a smaller scale serving only the elite, for a while, anyway. In any case, that will be the end of the mass middle class consumer phase of commercial aviation -- and also of mass middle class type tourism.

      Few people on Maui I spoke to were mentally prepared for the implications of this. But it's perfectly obvious that the Hawaiian Islands will become much more isolated again, and that the way of life that has developed there since 1970 will have to change drastically. I'm glad I went. I don't know if I'll ever go back. Beautiful as it was, I got tired of being in the car all the time and there was really no place to walk.

Comments

[Scorpio]

Sounds pitiful.

[one Eye Open]

Blah-blah-blah!

[Andy K]

Wow, a late post and this islander gets first comment. Real quick before someone beats me:

I really agree with the whole mentality of development, both on the mainland and island-style. Each Hawaiian island is different, though, and on Kauai where I live we're trying hard to avoid certain problems.

Regarding peak-oil, JHK once commented in a private email that Hawaii was going to be dead when the airline tourism stops. I actually think that is absolutely false. First of all, there's a chance cruise ships will still be affordable enough, they've already expanded to one a day on every island--port saturation. If nothing else, it'll just give us more time to get ready for a post-oil world. Because if there's something we do have, it's renewables: wind, sun, waves, even some hydro. The europeans beat us to 100% renewable self-sufficient islands (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct=us/1-0&fp=46081d93f1520c66&ei=vHIIRqfKHZe4pwLdsvTDAg&url=http%3A//www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_9513.shtml&cid=0), but hopefully we can follow and still preserve some of our environment.

Some people are already looking at the future here, a forward-looking exercise that I found quite rare on the mainland:

http://homepage.mac.com/juanwilson/islandbreath/%20Year%202007/03-past&future/0703-03Kauai2006-2050.html

[asoka]

I visited Maui over 30 years ago in the early seventies and was disgusted by the mega-beach-resorts-and-golf-courses development and tourist traps.

I always wondered what has happened in the last thirty years and it sounds like their development has continued along predictable lines... though I had never thought of it in terms of the California-commutes-burbs model.

I agree the mass middle class tourist bubble will pop soon (shortly after TSHTF) at around US$8.00 a gallon petrol.... if not sooner.

[zerotsm]

I'm still going to bash you for flying. Yes, if one person decides not to fly, the flight will go on as scheduled, but if 20 or 30 decide not to fly to that destination at that time, you can be sure that the flight will be cancelled.

I quit flying two years before 9-11, partly because the service had gotten so rotten, even back then, and in part because I realized what a waste of energy it was compared to taking a bus or train (if you can even find a train).

From your description, service has got even worse. Bad service and TSA bullshit will probably kill the commerical airlines even before peak oil does.

[one Eye Open]

In 2010 the price of gas at the pump will be under $3.00.

Take a chill pill, Chicken Littles.

[Stephen B.]

Chicken Littles?

I think the more apt story is The Boy Who Cried Wolf.....In that story, as you may recall, the wolf eventually DID show up, and with predictable consequences.

[Shane]

If you think a place like Hawaii is dead in the water once mass tourism dies then spare a thought for places like Australia, New Zealand and the remote south pacific. NZ in particular is highly reliant on very long distance tourism.
At least Hawaii is on a major shipping route between two big places.
Down here in the southern ocean in the longer term, being in an isolated dead end but with space to spare and reasonable sized population, may be a good thing.

[J.C., Sr.]

A late post . Iwas wondering where all the rest of the cranks were. Preparing for the oil collapse sounds great. A couple of state Senators here in the state of Connecticut are talking up great preps. I hope it isn,t all lip service. Meanwhile, the buses still stink and groan as diesel as ever. A couple of questions. Do you have to be brown to take the bus? When will the people who think they have a job take the bus? When will the buses take people to where they actually work or have we decentralised and screwed that situation up too?

[Weaseldog]

Easter's End
by Jared Diamond

http://www.dieoff.com/page145.htm

[Laura Louzader]

To J.C. Sr- there are only a handful of cities in the United States where you can truly live carless: NYC (bring money), Chicago, Boston, Philly, and San Francisco (bring MORE money). Boston, Philadelphia, and San Fran are marginal cases when it comes to mass transit, and so, really, is Chicago. I am one of the fortunate minority that lives on the north Chicago lakefront, and our service is reliable, but deteriorated. Still, you can do without a car easily, if you don't have to commute too far out to the burbs.

The rest of the country is totally reliant upon cars, in that the transit is so spotty no one with a job and duties can rely upon it. You are stranded after 7 PM, or it runs once every two hours, or doesn't go where you need it to go.

I'm sitting here hoping our local and national leaders aren't as clueless as they appear to be. I'm hoping that there are many brainy specialists working tirelessly behind the scenes to make things work, but I doubt it. Our politicians would so much rather spend money and wind on posturing and window-dressing than on anything that would actually help us live with a sharp cutback in our oil supplies.

JHK,I believe that places like Hawaii, after a period of civil disorder and breakdown, will revert to native ways and a more or less primitive lifestyle in the absence of oil and tourist dollars. The place is not an easy place for "ordinary" people to live as it is. Almost no one there lives without two jobs, because the cost of living is so high due to having to ship absolutely everything in at an elevated cost. Also, there is the way in which land ownership functions- you don't really own your property there. In the event of the breakdown of the local economy and technological supports, most Hoales will return to the mainland.

[ross]

Someone put the link below up over at Dumas's wonderful site, sudden debt. Take a deep breath, then read the paragraph at the top of the page, the one that reminds us that todays' stinko housing numbers were generated prior the the sub-prime meltdown. Shakespeare wrote "Beware the ideas of March, but T.S. Eliot penned "April is the cruelest month."

Vamos a ver.

http://infohype.blogspot.com/

[borealis]

Jim! You're finally back! These are the sorts of blog posts that I love. More insightful excoriations of suburban wasteland please.

[borealis]

P.S., should we feel sorry for people like these:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070325/ap_on_bi_ge/house_of_cards_6
Captain subprime wants 200k for a house with 100% LTV at 55k a year income? No way Jose. And then they are stupid enough to finance with an 8% ARM followed by an 13% balloon?

[Weaseldog]

Fred On How Smart We Are....

http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm

[Sean]

Jim's experience in Maui is much like that on any other reasonably-developed island in the Pacific. I spent several years on Saipan, which is a 40 square mile outpost in the Northern Marianas. Despite its diminutive size, I managed to drive about 15,000 miles per year, and frequently spent 40 minutes each morning commuting to work. The traffic is dense, the drivers are terrible and any other means of transit suicide. Everything there is shipped in. Fresh fruits and vegetables were luxuries, often air-freighted at great expense. Fuel costs were staggering; back in 2001 we paid $2.40/gallon of gasoline (now probably pushing past $4) and our electric bill was usually close to $300 for our 500 sq-ft apartment (we kept it air-conditioned.)

Certainly people could survive there without these modern luxuries, but their lives would be radically different. No more easy air travel to the mainland and Japan; no more spam and beer. And, without a doubt, the island would no longer be able to support the 60,000 people it does now...

[rogercraig]

Maui and The Big Island, the only two to which I have visited, are ringed by roads, usually congested, that are called oxymoronically Interstate Highways, perhaps as a nod in the direction of standardized federal roadway designations. They may make, in the not-too-distant future, great railbeds for trains that circumnavigate those islands. I assume that if the U.S. every gets serious about efficiencies in transport that Hawaiian Senators and Congressfolks will be in line to demand and receive their share of the pork.

Kunstler's right, there is no intrinsic spirit for complex systems to naturally reform themselves to address, or even acknowledge, a future without cheap fossil fuels fueling the DisneyLands we've all come to expect.

I'd have gladly taken a seat next to him on that airplane and, upon arrival, pointed out all the rusting abandoned automobiles ditched in the resplendent undergrowth. It would have been a great trip, with great company.

I'd have inhaled.

[Will]

I don't see the problem with JHK or Al Gore or any other energy activist taking trips on oil guzzling planes. They are trying to save the world in the quickest way possible. They could either be energy efficient but impotent or not as energy efficient but much more effective. Energy efficient doesn't mean energy stupid. Just imagine if Paul Revere took the energy efficient way of warning everyone about the British by walking or perhaps by just mailing a letter or two. The fact is, sometimes getting the word out QUICK by whatever means needed is the correct thing to do. Hey, and if these activists need some unwind time, allowing them a quicker vacation via air travel may be a good idea so they can return to the mission at hand that much sooner. Besides, all the activists put together still use a tiny percentage when compared against the mega-gallons wasted each year by tens of thousands of liesure travelers.

[one Eye Open]

If Kunstler walked his talk, he would have rented a canoe and paddled out and back.

[Gryphon]

"I had to go to San Fran to give a talk at the Commonwealth Club."

Had to, or CHOSE to? You know Jim, videoconferencing works wonders these days. Yeah, I'm sure the lure of Hawaii was stong, but since you keep telling us all that we need to start making "alternate arrangements", how about practicing what you preach from time to time? You seem to be flying around an awful lot.

[Uncle Yarra]

Nah, forget the canoe, tell an internet real estate agent you're interested in buying a McMauiMansion and he'll fly you out there for free - just on the hope you'll buy something...

[Mort]

Everyone says the plane was going that way anyway, but I'll cut you some slack. A cruise out to the islands would seemingly be a much better, and longer, experience. Alas, no-one has the time, even the rich guys are flitting here and there like they can't take it in fast enough.

I think Hawaii stands a better chance of sustainable living than the rest of us, provided they don't become grossly overpopulated. Fish, fertile cropland. I'm surprised they aren't totally renewable on electricity by now. Throw in some GEM electric cars and they're fixed for a long time. It would be nice to see them kick the petrol habit. Anyway, I'm glad you had a nice trip.

[Andy K]

Whoops, I wrote too fast. What I meant to say of course is that I agree with *Jim's assessment* of the mentality of development. Many people in America are so tuned into to TV, sports, their own world of consumption to even think of something different.

To give you an example, I grew up mostly without TV and I hope my 16mo. daughter will too. But last weekend, we watched parts of the Sesame Street movie with some other kids (her first movie). Sesame Street is portrayed as this ideal (but a quite run-down) neighborhood where people socialize and do fun stuff in the (not over-sized) street and there are all sorts of useful businesses available to pedestrians--it almost looks European (I know it's produced in New York and supposed to represent some ideal diversity to kids, but despite the show's ongoing popularity (and to my knowledge, lack of car culture), that image doesn't really find any resonance in America.

Outside of downtown Honolulu, Hawaii is mostly rural or touristy, which leads to really crappy bike and pedestrian options (few sidewalks, fewer bike lanes). Kauai is building an ocean-front bike path and people are opposed to it, saying the money would be better spent on improving the roads to avoid the traffic jams. The population is growing fast, everybody wants to live on agricultural estates and shop at Costco (which just opened, unfortunately).

--Other comment threads:

As an islander who flies to the mainland about twice year, I'm wondering if I should reduce my flying. If anyone has any average MPG per passenger for long-haul flights let me know. My back-of-the-envelope calculation comes to 76 [assuming 3500 kg/hr fuel in a 757 (from http://www.simradar.com/File/2135/Boeing_757_PW2037_fuel_consumption_table_and_graph.html), 5.5 hrs flight of 2500 miles, 200 passengers, 0.33 gal/kg jet fuel (or 0.8 kg/l from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_fuel)]. Certainly worse than a sailboat (though maybe not if you count the 30 days of food), and it all gets burned in the atmosphere, but still not worthy of scorn. Plus I also wonder if the no-flyers drive only 5K miles, compost, recycle, catch rain-water, etc.

OEO, take it to http://www.longbets.org/rules. Oh wait, I already pay more than $3 in Hawaii, California, and everywhere I've been in Europe. You lose.

[godozo]

oeo:

I wouldn't be surprised if gasoline prices were around $3.00/gallon in 2010. They'd be burning through the Arctic National Reserve in 2010, I'm guessing.

Which means: what happens in 2011? $30.00/gallon?

Of course, I could be wrong. The ANR could be the oil set aside to institute the slave-state that would come from an attempt to organize the post-oil society. In short, I pay $3.00/gallon for the cop car to take me to prison with a bunch of fellow-slaves from the fields.

Either way, you'd be right.

[rogercraig]

Imagine rain water as free delivery. The great truck in the sky through the hydrologic cycle. It's all good.