Aloha,
Thank you for your interest in a more Sustainable UH and Hawaii! When I think of how I relate to sustainability I look to my experiences, which have continually deepened my understanding of why our community and Hawaii are important to this global movement.
Like many people, I have felt what my Futures professor, Dr. Dator, calls the tsunami of change that is upon us. Many see these in technical terms of global warming and peak oil. I see these as symptoms of a deeper problem, that the people of the world have lost their connection to themselves, to each other, and to the land. The unnecessary suffering that results from these lost connections is what I have devoted my life to addressing. I knew no one when I came to Hawaii, but I was drawn because I read a book called the “Voices of Wisdom, Hawaiian Elders Speak.” When I read it, I wept because I no longer felt I was alone or naïve in the values I felt the world needed. They are alive and well, here in Hawaii.
The values that have touched me, and that I experience here everyday, involve looking beyond the "here and now," beyond the needs of just yourself, beyond monetary value. All of those things are fleeting; they are unsustainable. If we instead value our true connections with ourselves, to our neighbors, to our ancestors and children, and to the ocean, land, and sky as our communities have demonstrated, I believe that so much unnecessary suffering would subside and our economy and planet would heal. These values are the reason we call our team the HUB, which stands for "Help Us Bridge." We view our efforts as our kuleana; as an honor and a privilege rather than a bragging right. We focus on inviting people to participate in tangible projects like saving energy and water and recycling. Most importantly, we strive to bring the values of integrity, respect, patience, understanding, aloha, and the interconnectedness of everything to all we do. For me, this is true sustainability. The projects are simply ways of expressing and sharing these values and our humble hope is that they will be infectious.
While sustainability is a buzz word that may stay or go, I have chosen to work with it as a means of spreading these values. Many are using this word to disguise the "same old, same old" growth at all costs or economic survival. But in Hawaii the community here has something unique to offer this movement. We have knowledge of self-reliance of the Ahupua'a, respect for the ecosystem through indigenous practices, and the consideration of intergenerational knowledge when making decisions. We can demonstrated how to surf this tsunami of change. This is why I believe, together we can truly serve as a world leader for sustainability.
Thank you for being part of this exciting time!
Mahalo,
Shanah Trevenna BSc.Mech.Eng., M.A.
Sustainable UH Coordinator
trevenna@hawaii.edu
808.772.1874
Shanah Trevenna currently lives and surfs in Honolulu, Hawaii. She is the author of Surfing Tsunamis of Change, a powerful story of a woman's voyage to Hawaii to find her purpose as an "agent of change" in the era of sustainability. Trevenna teaches an honors course on sustainability and internships at the University of Hawaii. She is pursuing her PhD in Political Science, is the President of the Sustainability Association of Hawaii, is a founding member of Women in Renewable Energy (WIRE), the Director of the Rewarding Internship for Sustainable Employment (RISE) program, and is the Hawaii Education Consultant for Johnson Controls Inc. and continues as the Coordinator for Sustainable UH.
