Haleakala National Park in HawaiiPhoto courtesy Simonds via FlickrHawaii’s state legislature established a climate change task force last week to study the potential impacts of rising sea levels, eroding coast lines, ocean acidification, fiercer storms, and other expected affects of climate change, and to suggest response strategies.

Lawmakers overrode a veto by Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, who said the state couldn’t afford the project and that such task forces “study issues but rarely produce tangible results." The bill diverts $50,000 a year from a state tourism fund to support the task force.

In June, the federal government’s major Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States report forecasted severe effects on U.S. Pacific islands if climate change continues unchecked.

From the Hawaii bill:

See also: An editorial on climate change and Hawaii from Friday's Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

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The more you talk to Shai Agassi, the more the Steve Jobs comparison seems apt.

Shai AgassiCourtesy Better PlaceLike his fellow Silicon Valley impresario, Agassi, the founder of electric car infrastructure startup Better Place, is as much a green-tech visionary as entrepreneur bent on cashing in on the "Next Big Thing." Just as Jobs elegantly married hardware and software to create the iPod and iPhone and disrupted the telecommunication-entertainment industrial complex, Agassi aims to do the same with transportation.

In case you missed the spate of national magazine stories on the former software executive and his company, Better Place has signed deals with governments in Israel, Denmark, Australia, California, Hawaii and Canada to build a web of electric car charging spots and battery-swapping stations.

Agassi aims to crack the chicken-and-egg electric vehicle dilemma by deploying the infrastructure that will give automakers the confidence to make carbon-free cars by the tens of millions while allaying drivers' "range anxiety" that they'll run out of juice on the way to grandma's house. Better Place will own your car's battery and sell you electricity by the mile (or kilometer) like your mobile phone company sells you minutes.

Better Place is not the only company pushing that model, but no competitor has raised as much money -- more than $200 million so far -- or signed deals with national governments to electrify their roadways.

Then there's the Agassi factor.

If Steve Jobs is a distant, "cult of personality" figure, making semi-annual pronouncements before the party faithful in a never-changing uniform of running shoes, jeans and turtleneck, Agassi is the Gen X enviro-evangelist in a sharply cut black suit, appearing before audiences large and small to sell the story of making the world a better place through electric transportation.

I sat down with Agassi recently to get an update on Better Place's progress and delve into just how the company plans to make money off a capital-intensive venture that will depend on an emerging EV ecosystem of carmakers, battery manufacturers and utilities, not to mention government policymakers.

Slight and dark-haired with a penetrating gaze, Agassi possesses Jobs' supreme charismatic self-confidence -- "The internal combustion engine is dead," he tells me matter-of-factly -- and parries every question with a ready set of facts and figures. We met at Fortune Magazine's Brainstorm Green conference in Southern California a few weeks before the scheduled May 13 unveiling of Better Place's prototype battery switching station in Japan. (Why Japan? "They paid for it," he says. "Japan is the most robust manufacturing and they fear being wrong" on electric cars.)

Think of Better Place's battery switching station as the electric version of gas station. Most of the time Better Place subscribers will top off their batteries at home or at battery charging posts -- about the size of a parking meter -- scattered around cities and suburbs. For trips that exceed a car's range, they'll pull into a switching station where a robot will unlatch a panel underneath the vehicle and remove the battery pack, install a fresh battery and close and lock the panel. Total time: About 40 seconds. The depleted battery is then recharged so it's ready for the next customer. Each Better Place station will cost about half million dollars and will maintain a store of 10 batteries.

"We've done tests where we've swapped the battery 200 times a day on a car," Agassi says. "It feels like a car wash more than anything else."

For $25 million, according to Agassi, Better Place could electrify the West Coast's Interstate 5 corridor.

So far, Renault-Nissan is the only automaker that has pledged to manufacture an electric car with a battery pack configuration compatible with the Better Place switching station. No worries, says Agassi, noting that in Israel -- the first country that will deploy a nationwide Better Place network -- the company has already taken more than 20,000 orders for electric Renaults. He says that's enough to break even on Better Place's initial $200 million investment in 100 switching stations and 100,000 charging posts. At somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 cars, Better Place turns a profit, according to Agassi, who notes that there are about 2 million cars on the road in Israeli and that about 200,000 cars were sold there in 2008.

Israel, a relatively tiny country, is one thing. But the suburbanized and continent-wide United States will require a much bigger investment in infrastructure. Agassi estimates that to do the initial build out of the San Francisco Bay Area, he'll need Northern Californians to buy between 40,000 and 50,000 electric vehicles -- no small number. When Better Place announced the $1 billion Bay Area deal with the mayors of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland last year, no automaker had committed to providing the electric cars, though Renault-Nissan has pledged to begin putting EVs in mass production by 2012.

A demonstration of what a Better Place charging station looks like. Watch the video at the bottom of this article for a demonstration of the company's battery-swapping stations.Courtesy Better PlaceAgassi says he expects Better Place to earn between $4,000 and $5,000 in annual battery subscription fees per car. That would be the equivalent of buying $76 to $100 worth of gasoline a week, which seems on the high side for even a suburban commuter given current gasoline prices. That's also far more than what Better Place's initial urban customers likely pay for gas. Of course, the wild card is the price of gas. If it goes back up to $4 or more per gallon, Better Place's numbers start to look more reasonable.

There are plenty of critics who question whether Better Place can raise the billions needed to build just the infrastructure for the deals the company has signed so far. Others doubt that automakers and battery manufacturers will adopt standardized technology to enable, for instance, the widespread use of Better Place switching stations.

None of which, of course, fazes Agassi. He says Better Place has the cash to build the Israel network and Denmark -- next up with a 2011 roll out -- is financed as well. He's hoping to tap stimulus package funds to help pay for Hawaii's network.

"Somewhere between hundreds of thousands and millions of cars, electric vehicles are cheaper to make than gas-powered cars," he said earlier in the day, pacing the Brainstorm Green conference stage Oprah-like. "Somewhere between now and then we get to [the equivalent of] zero dollars a barrel of oil."

--

Below, a Better Place promotional video:

Watch another promotional video on the Better Place website.

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Hawaii's television broadcast signals are going digital a month earlier than the rest of the country in an attempt to avoid disturbing the endangered petrel's nesting season with the destruction of the old transmission towers, which are near the birds' nesting sites.

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Hawaii's largest utility has lei'd out plans to help the state source 70 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030. Hawaiian Electric Co. has promised to never break ground on another coal plant (yippee!) and will convert existing fossil-fuel generators to local-crop biofuels. Just pour that piña colada in your tank, Hank! "It's not going to be easy," says Sen. Daniel Inouye (D), "but we must do it, because of all the 50 states in the union, our state is the most vulnerable." Currently, 90 percent of the energy used to power all those luaus comes from imported oil and coal. Some of the schemes announced Monday lack cost estimates and are likely a while from fruition, such as a plan for undersea cables to move wind-generated power between islands. But Gov. Linda Lingle (R) promises, "These are not hopes or dreams or wishes; these are our specific plans that we hope to achieve."

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Remember when President Bush designated the world's largest protected marine area in Hawaii in 2006? Environmentalists cheered, fish clapped their fins, and Bush aides crossed "burnish green reputation" off the presidential to-do list -- but the aftermath has been underwhelming. Tons of debris drift into the 140,000-square-mile Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument each year, posing a great threat to marine life. But the same year that Bush declared the area a monument and banned trash within it, the administration slashed the cleanup budget for the area by 80 percent. Before the monument designation, an average 102 tons of junk were collected each year; since then, debris removal has fallen to about 35 tons a year. While the lack of follow-through is frustrating (if expected), one Hawaii resident notes that blame is widespread: "We can pick up plastic off the beach from now until the end of time, but unless people stop putting it in the ocean our problem will never go away."

source:

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It's not a good time to be a bird in the U.S. The Watch List 2007, published by the National Audubon Society and American Bird Conservancy, finds that 178 bird species in the continental U.S. and 39 in Hawaii are vulnerable to extinction. That's almost all of Hawaii's non-migratory native birds and more than a quarter of total U.S. bird species, including the Gunnison sage grouse, lesser prairie chicken, and masked booby, which makes us giggle. While 27 bird species are coming off the list this year, the total number of species on the list is up 11 percent from five years ago. The usual suspects are to blame: climate change, habitat loss, and a federal government that, says one report coauthor, "doesn't believe in the Endangered Species Act."

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The Hawaii legislature has approved a bill allowing resumption of voyages by the Hawaii Superferry, halted by court order in August because a state-required environmental-impact assessment had not been completed. The new legislation, backed by Gov. Linda Lingle (R), will allow the ferry to make its Oahu-to-Maui and Oahu-to-Kauai treks while the assessment is being made. The ferry is strongly supported on Oahu, but county councils on Kauai and Maui raised concerns about heavy traffic, invasive species, and depleted fish stocks.

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Two days after it began, service on the muchly protested Hawaii Superferry has been suspended indefinitely, for environmental-impact and protester-safety reasons.

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Hawaii's first-ever inter-island ferry service comes under protest

Hawaii's first-ever inter-island passenger ferry service set off this weekend amidst protests that it could harm marine life, spread invasive species, and worsen pollution. The docking of the ferry's second voyage was delayed by a dozen steamed surfers, while hundreds more protesters stood on the island seawall shouting and carrying signs. (Perhaps most eloquent: "Stupid ferry, stupid riders.") Hawaii's Supreme Court had ruled Thursday that the state should have required an environmental review before letting the Hawaii Superferry go forward; in response, the ferry service moved its maiden voyage up by two days and offered $5 one-way tickets from Oahu to Maui and Kauai. (After Sept. 4, the price will jump to more than $240 round trip for one passenger and one car.) Three green groups have sued. On Monday, a state judge agreed to temporarily block the ferry from using Maui's Kahului Harbor. A hearing tomorrow will determine whether the ferry will be halted for good until environmental impact studies can be conducted. Ferry ports on the islands of Oahu and Kauai are unaffected by Monday's ruling.

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Five environmental groups sue Navy over sonar use off Hawaii

Tensions over the U.S. Navy's use of sonar in anti-submarine exercises off Hawaii have resurfaced, and five green groups are suing to change the practice. Citing concerns that sonar can kill and injure whales, dolphins, and other marine mammals, the lawsuit names both the Navy and the National Marine Fisheries Service, which issues permits for the activities. It asks the court to stop the exercises -- 12 of which are planned through 2008 -- until an environmental impact study is completed and protective measures are enacted. The Navy maintains that it has gone "to great lengths" to be wicked careful, keeping an eye out for whales from on deck and from airplanes, and turning off sonar when the creatures get too close. But activists say some such practices have been abandoned, and claim the Navy is violating environmental laws. "The Navy is not above the law," says Marti Townsend of KAHEA, a Hawaiian environmental coalition. "Protecting the country includes following its laws, not skirting them."

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Navy divers clean up coastal messes

Navy divers are the latest crazy hippies clamoring to clean up coastal messes. For problems too expensive or vast for civilian government agencies to handle, military divers provide cutting-edge technology and finely tuned abilities -- and in turn, they get to sharpen their diving skillz. This summer, Army and Navy divers helped collect tons of old fishing nets from the bottom of Puget Sound in Washington state -- experience that could come in handy if they one day need to remove harbor-blocking nets during hostilities. Navy divers may also clean up the newly designated national marine preserve in the Hawaiian islands, and plan to remove a 37-acre failed artificial reef of old tires off Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "When you actually see the magnitude of the tires, it doesn't take an environmentalist to know ... we need to get the tires out of there for the good of our country," says Navy Chief Warrant Officer Dan Mikulski. But don't call them tree-hugging (ahem) pansies, he warns: "We're big, bad, hairy-chested deep-sea divers."

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Genetically modified grass found in the wild

In what could be the first confirmed instance of a genetically modified plant growing outside a farm in the U.S., EPA ecologists have found an unapproved type of GM grass in the wild in central Oregon. The EPA said the creeping bentgrass (could it sound more evil?), being developed by Scotts Miracle-Gro and Monsanto to be resistant to the herbicide Roundup, will probably not be an ecological threat -- but it may provide fodder for critics who have worried that GM grass will pass herbicide resistance to its wild, weedy relatives. Meanwhile, similarly concerned green groups in Hawaii called for a moratorium on open-air tests of "bio-pharmed" crops, engineered to produce human proteins, pharmaceuticals, and ingredients for vaccines. "To date, effective control programs have not been demonstrated to our satisfaction," said Jeffrey Barach of the Food Products Association. If only Hitchcock were alive to make a movie about this stuff ...

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Deal lets Navy make limited use of sonar in exercises off Hawaii

A temporary ban on Navy sonar use has been lifted, after the Navy agreed to take steps to protect whales in return for the dropping of a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The Navy is in the midst of the world's largest naval war exercise near Hawaii; for the remainder of the exercise, mid-frequency active sonar will be disallowed within 25 nautical miles of the brand spankin' new Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument. Also, some Navy sailors and pilots will be designated with the important if not glamorous job of, well, whale watching -- keeping eyes and ears out for whales in distress. "Military readiness does not require, and our laws do not allow, our natural resources to be sacrificed in the name of national defense," said Joel Reynolds of NRDC. He added that while enviros didn't get everything they wanted, they believed the settlement was the best they could do. Marine mammals have been harmed or killed in at least 11 naval exercises worldwide since 1998.

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Judge temporarily restricts Navy's sonar use to protect whales

The U.S. Navy is temporarily forbidden to use high-intensity sonar in war-game exercises off the coast of Hawaii, a federal judge declared on Monday. She ruled that environmental groups had provided "considerable convincing scientific evidence that the Navy's use of ... sonar can kill, injure, and disturb many species, including marine mammals." Two summers ago, Navy war games off of Hawaii disoriented more than 150 melon-headed whales (no, we're not making fun of them -- that's what they're called), which left their deep-water habitat and were found swimming chaotically in the shallows of a bay. On Friday, the Department of Defense granted the Navy a six-month national-security exemption from the Marine Mammal Protection Act, apparently in an effort to circumvent the lawsuit, but the judge ruled that the exemption did not cover the National Environmental Policy Act, so the suit could go forward. The Navy and NRDC have until July 12 to discuss a settlement; on July 18, the judge will consider making the ban permanent.

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Bush creates world's largest marine protected area

Well, slap our ass and call us Sally: George W. Bush, the prez formerly known as the earth's worst enemy, created the largest protected marine area in the world yesterday when he designated the 1,200-mile-long Northwestern Hawaiian Islands chain and surrounding waters as a national monument. The region is home to some 7,000 marine species, at least a quarter of which are unique to the area. At nearly the size of California, the monument will be larger than all of the country's national parks combined. Fishing in the largely uninhabited islands will be phased out over the next five years, though some groups plan to fight a complete fishing ban. Enviros joined marine scientists in gushing over the move. Bush was allegedly inspired by a PBS documentary about the ocean region. Imagine what could happen if he saw An Inconvenient Truth!

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Last year, unusually warm Caribbean waters killed some 40 percent of the coral around the U.S. Virgin Islands and weakened much of the rest. This year, wouldn't you know it, the waters are warming again. "It's impossible to overstate how important this is," says biologist Caroline Rogers. High water temperatures lead coral to kick off the partner algae that give them color and sustenance, leaving them white and frail -- a problem that's hitting reefs around the globe. But one species of coral found in the waters of Hawaii seems to have gotten Darwin's memo about adapting: when bleached, instead of relying on energy reserves, Montipora capitata extends short stinging tentacles and gobbles tiny marine animals called zooplankton. "This suggests there are some corals out there that can survive," said lead researcher Andréa Grottoli, whose study appears in Nature this week. Those other corals were weenies anyway, right?

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