Blue Line Project

Today, as part of the activities for the International Day of Climate Action a group of us got together at one of the busy Kahului intersections to draw a blue chalk line on the sidewalk representing areas at risk from flooding if the sea level rises by one meter. Coastal geologist Chip Fletcher, chair of the Geology & Geophysics Department at the University of Hawaii Manoa created maps using Google Earth to show locations that would be impacted by sea level rise.

Alex, Phyllis, Joie

 

Phyllis, Alex, and a blue line friend

The one-meter increase was selected based on predictions of where sea level will be in 100 years if CO2 levels (and global temperatures) continue to rise at their current rate. The International Day of Climate Action was conceived by Bill McKibben's 350.org to raise awareness about climate change and inspire action. The organization's name comes from 350 parts per million, which is considered to be the safe limit for CO2 in the atmosphere (current level is 390 ppm and rising). The Blue Line Project was organized as an activity to specifically highlight impacts to the Hawaiian Islands.

 Sidewalk fish

 

Alex in the flood zone

So we met in the parking lot of the Maui Mall, put on our Project Blue Line t-shirts, grabbed our box of blue chalk and information cards, and came up with some creative ways to draw the blue line on the sidewalk next to the mall. I have to clarify the term 'mall' here...the Maui Mall is a not-too-busy strip mall that houses Long's Drugs, Subway, Wendy's, the currently boarded-up and maybe future home of Whole Foods, and my favorite hangout of late - the Maui Department of Motor Vehicles. So there was not much action going on there at 11 am (except at Wendy's). But across the street was Safeway and Jack-in-the-Box (yes, there ARE a lot of fast food places in Kahului!) so the street had a fair amount of traffic.

Yours truly

We were attracting a modest amount of attention and managing to hand out a few information postcards when we were rudely interrupted by Maui Mall security, a no-nonsense, unsmiling team who surely had seen a lot of hard core crime going down at the mall. Our leader, Alex, explained what we were doing, and that the Maui police had actually been informed ahead of time about our activities, but Starsky and Hutch were having none of that. They looked at our chalk drawings as if they were the most offensive grafitti they had ever seen, and seemed unconvinced that the chalk would actually wash away in the rain. It was at this point that our team decided we had made our point sufficiently and we might as well call it a day. Although we briefly considered going for the publicity shot of being dragged away in handcuffs, we ultimately agreed to leave the scene and live to fight another day. We had our photos anyway and the sun was kind of hot. So now I'm back in the Paia studio, using electricity to run my computer, the refrigerator, and of course the window AC unit, which is really only running to drown out the annoying tinkle of the shave ice truck parked outside.

Top row, l. to r.: MJ, Phyllis, Joie, Alex

Bottom row: me, Satdeva