Fall 2019: October Issue 2
Dearest Vulcan,
With midterms on their merry way, I’m wishing you indefatigable endurance–or at least a lot of clandestine, late-night cramming–in order to ace those exams and papers with ease. Here at Ke Kalahea, we’ve brought a few new additions onto the team for the year, and I’m excited to introduce their work to you between these pages.
The bulk of this issue mirrors a theme recently revisited around the globe– climate change. The business surrounding the state of our planet never disappeared; instead, it sparks off and on as a hot topic of mainstream conversation, while time unfolds and our impacts accumulate. In the meantime, we’ve featured some local undertakings aimed at doing our part to decrease the campus community’s carbon footprint and bringing awareness to the problems at hand.
Personally, I’m in no position to impart the kind of pipeline-obliterating, ozone-resuscitating, carbon-expunging inspiration so admirably touted from the frontlines of our globe’s quasi-united efforts to save the planet. Headlines–such as Ted Anthony’s “Dark skies: UN meeting reveals a world in a really bad mood” (Associated Press) from Sept. 29–leave me heavy-hearted like any sane and informed human being.
At times like these, I find immense peace in the fact that this world was here long before our kind and will be here long after, and I believe that the Earth will take care of herself. But as far as the fate of our natural disaster of a species, my degree of hope ebbs and flows. What I do know is that we probably can’t fix the damage we’ve caused by using the same system that got us here. We also can’t rely on the excuse that our individual actions won’t aggregate into a collective impact big enough to make a difference.
What we can do, however, is strive to ingrain in ourselves a lifestyle that’s compassionate towards and respectful of the air, water, and land from which we gain life until these habits become second nature. Boycott meat, buy thrifty, bike more, drive less, plant a garden, vote green, and remember that we are of the Earth, not over it.
E mālama pono
Take good care,
Rosannah