Protect Sacred Mauna Kea! NO TMT
I wrote the following in 2010. I think it has stood the test of time.
Please share your thoughts with all TMT affiliates and government officials Mahalo.
Jim Albertini
Aloha (note to a fellow farmer)
Below is a copy (more or less) of my testimony at the Thursday Hilo Mauna Kea hearing. I’m not sure if you were there when I testified.
But I wanted to add a few additional comments to you personally as a fellow farmer trying to do things in sustainable manner which I much appreciate.
When we think of wars in our time, we immediately think to Iraq, Afghanistan. but more and more I am seeing the greatest war is beyond that. It is really a war against the planet. ( The latest Monsanto/American Home Products herbicides are named PENTAGON and SQUADRON –the language of war.)
You know about Peak Oil and the blood for oil savagery going on right now, the environmental consequences of war in the Persian Gulf, the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the global consequences underway with global warming and climate change. The natural extension of this grasp for resources and concentration of wealth is leading beyond blood for oil, to blood for food, blood for water, etc. There is no end in sight. We are doing violence to soil, to air, to water, violence to all that sustains our very existence which is why we are in a state of rapidly approaching global catastrophe. There is lip service, but nothing appears truly sacred anymore. As I note in my testimony below, I see the current Mauna Kea controversy as a microcosm of the state of the world and the challenge we face to put conservation before development, the temple before the telescope, the kalo before the kala. We look into space but ignore the sacred ground upon which we stand. Instead of a 30 meter mirror to look outward, we need to look in a mirror right here at home and see ourselves and our world for what we have become. Instead of looking up and out, we need to look down and in. Then give voice for a mute earth, who is now in rebellion against our idiocy.
Mahalo for your consideration.
With gratitude and aloha,
Jim
Malu `Aina Center For Non-violent Education & Action
P.O. Box 489 Kurtistown, Hawaii 96760
Phone 808-966-7622
ja@malu-aina.org Visit us on the web at www.malu-aina.org
Office of Conservation and Coastal Management
Department of Land and Natural Resources
P.O. Box 621
Honolulu, Hawaii 96809
December 2, 2010
Re: CDUA HA 3568 for the Thirty Meter Telescope
The TMT project has the same smell as the fast track DLNR plan years back to put geothermal development in the Natural Area Reserve Conservation district known as the Wao kele O Puna Rainforest –the last remaining intact lowland rainforest in Hawaii. That misguided effort resulted in hundreds of arrests for non-violent civil resistance and was stopped over the failure to do a Federal EIS. The same may be required for the TMT. Federal funds are involved and no Federal EIS has been done.
Our non-profit organization, Malu Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action, grows food to share with people in need and to support the work of justice, peace, and preserving the environment. We stand in strong opposition to the Conservation District Use Permit requested for the Thirty Meter Telescope on sacred Mauna Kea. We recommend that the Board deny the permit request for the following reasons.
The current state of Mauna Kea represents a microcosm of our planet heading off the cliff of Global Warming due to over-development.
For our planet, the evidence is crystal clear that the present course of industrial development is heading for unprecedented catastrophe. But are we willing to seriously change the way we live, and the decisions we make day to day. Are we willing to put conservation before development?
On Mauna Kea —
1. We know that the cumulative impacts on Mauna Kea according to the 2005 EIS done by NASA are “substantial, adverse and significant” yet we still go forward with more building: 5 meter telescopes, 10 meters, now 30 meters, with no end in sight. The “bigger is better” logic will eventually put a mirror over the entire summit.
2. We know that No study has been done to assess the carrying capacity of the mountain for development.
3. We know that the University of Hawaii and its self appointed Mauna Kea Management Board are in a position of conflict of interest. The University benefits financially from telescope development yet it is suppose to be a management entity for conservation on the mountain. The record is clear: development trumps conservation. When will we learn? When will we reverse course and put conservation before development?
For our organization the bottom line is this. The host culture of Hawaii tells us that the summit of Mauna Kea is the most sacred temple in all Hawaii. In fact, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa are two of the most sacred sites in all the Pacific. Do we simply hear those words but have no understanding of their meaning? Or do we understand but disregard the meaning out of other concerns –science, prestige, development money and jobs? In any case, to proceed with further development in the summit area of Mauna Kea is desecration of the most sacred temple in Hawaii. It is disrespectful. It is shameful. In the Judeo/Christian sense, it is sacrilegious. It is sinful. The irony is that looking into the heavens will be our downfall because we have not shown respect. We look into space but not listen to the native people of this place. If we want to be pono, the means we use must be in line with the end that we seek. It is time to live aloha — live the principles of non-violence in Hawaii and around the world. Aloha demands justice. The conflict over expanding construction on Mauna Kea, like the expansion of militarism and warfare training at Pohakuloa represent sores/infections on the ‘aina. They are symptoms of a deeper problem. What is truly needed to heal is to end the ongoing illegal U.S. Occupation of Hawaii. I am confident that a reinstated independent nation of Hawaii would never permit the desecration of its most sacred temple.
Deny this permit request. Mahalo.
Protect the Sacred! No TMT
James V. Albertini
President
Jim Albertini
Malu ‘Aina Center for Non-violent Education & Action
P.O.Box 489
Kurtistown, Hawai’i 96760
phone: 808-966-7622
email ja@malu-aina.org
Visit us on the web at: www.malu-aina.org
