Maui Wildfires Blamed on Climate Change, but Government Was the Real Problem

The catastrophic wildfires on Maui have spurred many to speculate on what caused such a tragedy on an otherwise lush tropical island. And, of course, many in the climate cult are simply closing their eyes, covering their ears, and shouting that climate change is the cause of this tragedy, and that everyone of us with our use of fossil fuels is personally to blame.

As of this writing, at least 93 are dead and the community of Lahaina lies in smoldering ruins as firefighters struggle to contain blazes on the island. People have been stunned to hear about a wildfire, of all things, devastating a tropical paradise. Such things are only supposed to occur in dry areas such as the American West or Australia — not on a lush tropical island.

And many are blaming climate change, perhaps not for the fires themselves but for leading to conditions that could allow such a conflagration to occur.

Climate change is “leading to these unpredictable or unforeseen combinations that we’re seeing right now and that are fueling this extreme fire weather,” Kelsey Copes-Gerbitz, a postdoctoral researcher said. “What these … catastrophic wildfire disasters are revealing is that nowhere is immune to the issue.”

Officials in Hawaii pleaded ignorance when asked why more wasn’t done to get people out of the fire’s path.

“We’ve never experienced a wildfire that affected a city like this, so this is something we’ve not experienced before,” said Governor Josh Green.

“We have experienced wildfires across the state and they’ve been tragic, but usually tragic in open space,” Green added. So, they knew wildfires were a possibility, they just didn’t know they were possible in places where people resided?

“What is the benefit and meaning of “fuel load reduction”?”

Get rid of the fuel and there’s nothing to burn. The previously-irrigated cane and pineapple fields were wet and cultivated, so hard to burn. When they disappeared, dry, flammable weeds moved in, i.e., lots of fuel for the fires (the “fuel load”). It was like the prairie fires that routinely swept across the Great Plains up into the Canadian prairies. The native grasses, when they dried out mid- to late-summer, burned like crazy and swept across the prairies.

Those are good questions. I don't know what happened, so a quick Google search found a Horticultural Science paper with everything you want to know about the Hawaiian Pineapple Industry: Hawaii Pineapple: The Rise and Fall of an Industry.

Here are a few excerpts. There are really no surprises...globalization combined with high labor and land prices in Hawaii is the main reason.

* Foreshadowing of the decline of the industry began in the 1960s, mainly as a result of competition from canned packs produced in the Philippines and Thailand.

* Production was also growing elsewhere with 3.82 million cases produced in 1950 in Taiwan, Malaya/Singapore, Okinawa, South Africa, Australia, Côte d’Ivoire, and “all other” areas; by 1969, production in those countries totaled 24.1 million cases, whereas Hawaii’s production had only increased from 11.95 to 12.85 million cases (Anonymous, 1972).

* ...shipping costs from Hawaii to the mainland that exceeded the costs from the Philippines and Thailand as a result of the Jones Act, the termination of regular ocean shipping service to Gulf and East Coast ports in 1968, and price competition from domestic fruits and juices. However, the Commission found that the primary factor contributing to the higher cost of Hawaiian canned pineapple was unit labor costs, which accounted for half of production costs and were 90% greater in 1972 than they had been in 1960. Larsen and Marks (2010) also noted that land costs were high in Hawaii and observed that a 0.5% gross income tax on products and the cost of pineapple research also contributed to the higher costs in the Hawaii industry.

* The circumstances that brought about the fall of the Hawaii industry are no different from those that have caused the demise of many industries in developed countries. The globalization of the international economy allowed companies in developed countries to relocate production to developing countries to take advantage of lower labor costs together with cheaper resources such as land and water. The systematic reduction of tariffs by developed countries since WWII accentuated this trend.

Figure 3. Total tons pineapple produced in Hawaii (Tons–all), tons sold fresh (Tons fresh), farm gate value of pineapple sold, value of tons sold fresh, and selected data on canneries and land in pineapple. (Anonymous, 1961–1997; Hidano and Nakasone, 2007; Martin and Osaki, 1998–2006; values from 2008 to 2010 are the authors’ best estimates.)

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