Ka`u News Briefs August 17, 2013

Miss Ka`u Coffee Tiare-Lee Shibuya gets ready to say "go" for the Volcano Rain Forest Runs this morning in
Volcano Village. Photo by Julia Neal

THE FOURTH ANNUAL VOLCANO RAIN FOREST RUNS saw a record 719 participants this morning. The event, which includes a half marathon, 10K and 5K, has been growing at a rate of 20 percent each year, said organizer Sharron Faff. It is one of Volcano Art Center’s major annual fundraisers. It takes participants through Volcano Village with a celebration at Cooper Center.

Billy Barnett, a cross country coach, won the half marathon at Volcano
Rain Forest Runs this morning. 

     Billy Barnett won the half marathon with a time of 1:18:03. Rani Henderson won the women’s half marathon with a time of 1:28:58.
      10K-winner Joe Garcia posted a time of 39:16, and Kim Pierce won the women’s 10K with a time of 40:51.
      Stephen Hunter won the 5K with a time of 18:36. In the women’s 5K, Carmen Garson-Shumway won with a time of 22:27.
      Among the many Ka`u residents who participated were Aikido instructor Alan Moores and his son, teacher Angie Miyashiro, land planner Pueo McGuire and Hawai`i Wildlife Fund representative Megan Lamson.
      Miss Ka`u Coffee Tiare-Lee Shibuya fired off the starting yell for two of the races, with Mayor Billy Kenoi doing the honors for the 10K in which he participated.
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Greg Javar said he wants to become a civil engineer and come back home to
serve Hawai`i Island and Ka`u. He receives the scholarship check from
Ka`u Chamber president Dallas Decker, Scholarship chair Lee
McIntosh and Miss Ka`u Coffee Tiare-Lee Shibuya.

SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS and their families from Ka`u gathered last night to receive educational funding from the Ka`u Chamber of Commerce. Meeting at Pahala Plantation House, with Chamber board members and Miss Ka`u Coffee, Tiare-Lee Shibuya, they answered the question from Chamber president Dallas Decker, “What do you expect to be doing in ten years?” Overall winner is Tyler Amaral, with his essay entitled A World Without Computers? Not in My Community. Amaral said he hopes to be working in computers in Ka`u a decade from now. Service to the Ka`u community has already included voluntarily providing nine families with computers and training at no cost. The Na`alehu resident said that one of the families lives in a bus and all represent different age groups and ethnicities. He will attend Hawai`i Community College in Hilo this fall.
He read his winning essay to those who attended the scholarship presentations.

Ben Houghton jams on piano with Keoki Kahumoku. Houghton says he
plans to become a music teacher. Photos by Julia Neal

     Other winners include Benjamin Houghton, of Ocean View, a Ka`u High graduate who will take the bus three days a week to HCC-West Hawai`i this fall. A classical pianist who learned from the Internet and now has a piano teacher, Houghton entertained families of the winners and jammed with Keoki Kahumoku, who chanted, led a prayer and played guitar for the dinner held last night. Houghton said he hopes to be a music teacher.    
      Greg Javar, of Pahala - his mother Na`alehu School principal Darlene Javar also attended - said he hopes to become a civil engineer and work on the Big Island and serve Ka`u. Tiana Pascubillo, of Na`alehu, a graduate of Ka`u High who will attend HCC - Hilo this fall, said she plans to become a teacher. Leah Carriaga, of Na`ahelu, said she plans to use her college education here in Ka`u.

    Louise Vivien Santos, of Pahala, said she plans to return to Ka`u after her college education at UH- Hilo. She plans to become a nurse at Ka`u Hospital. Santos noted that she graduated from high school twice, once in the Phillippines and here at Ka`u High.
      Marley Strand-Nicolaisen, of Na`alehu, a graduate of Ka`u High who will attend UH-Hilo this fall, said she plans a career in medicine, particularly fitness and sports medicine.

Tyler Amaral read his winning essay.

      Other winners are Kayla Andrade, of Na`alehu, a sophmore at University of Hawai`i at Manoa; Radhika Dockstader, of Na`alehu, a sophmore at UH-Hilo; Donald Garo, Jr., of Pahala, a Ka`u High graduate who will be a freshman at HCC-Hilo this fall; Amber Leigh V. Hondonero, of Na`alehu, a graduate of Ka`u High, who will begin studies at HCC and UH-Hilo this fall.
      The Ka`u Chamber president encouraged the scholarship winners to come back each year for additional funding as long as their education continues - including graduate school. The scholarship chair noted that the fundraising comes from Ka`u residents joining the Ka`u Chamber of Commerce and supporting its annual Ka`u business and community publication called The Directory. The more the community supports The Directory, the more money will be available for scholarships, McIntosh noted, saying that the fundraising begins right away for next year’s scholarships.
     Miss Ka`u Coffee said she was proud of all the students and encouraged them to keep striving toward their educational goals. She also described here dream - becoming a nurse here in Ka`u.

“THE LEGACY OF OUR FOSSIL FUEL BURNING TODAY is a hangover that could last for tens of thousands of years, if not hundreds of thousands of years to come,” concludes oceanographer Richard Zeebe in a new study by University of Hawai`i at Manoa published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Richard Zeebe, of U.H., is an expert on climate.

      Zeebe predicts that future warming from fossil fuel burning could be more intense and longer-lasting than previously thought. He includes insights from episodes of climate change in the geologic past to inform projections of man-made future climate change.
      Over the past 250 years, human activities such as fossil fuel burning have raised the atmospheric carbon dioxide, CO2, concentration by more than 40 percent over its pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million. In May, the CO2 concentration in Earth’s atmosphere surpassed a milestone of 400 ppm for the first time in human history, a level that many scientists consider dangerous territory in terms of its impact on Earth’s climate.
      The study suggests that amplified and prolonged warming due to unabated fossil fuel burning raises the probability that large ice sheets such as the Greenland ice sheet will melt, leading to significant sea level rise, according to Zeebe. “When we talk about climate sensitivity, we’re referring to how much the planet’s global surface temperature rises for a given amount of CO2 in the atmosphere,” he says. A standard value for present-day climate sensitivity is about three degrees Celcius per doubling of atmospheric CO2. But according to Zeebe, climate sensitivity could change over time. Zeebe uses past climate episodes as analogs for the future, which suggest that so-called slow climate “feedbacks” can boost climate sensitivity and amplify warming.
      An example of a feedback is the familiar audio feedback experienced when a microphone interacts with a speaker. If the audio output from the speaker is received again by the microphone, the initial audio signal is strongly amplified in a positive feedback loop. 

Earth from Space. Photo from NASA

 A variety of feedbacks also operate in Earth’s climate system, Zeebe says. For example, a positive feedback loop exists between temperature, snow cover, and absorption of sunlight. When snow melts in response to warming, more sunlight can be absorbed at Earth’s surface because most surfaces have a lower reflectivity than snow.
      In turn, the additional absorption of sunlight leads to further warming, which leads to more snow melt, and so forth.
      Previous studies have usually only included fast climate feedbacks such as snow cover and clouds. Using information from pre-historic climate archives, Zeebe calculated how slow climate feedbacks like land ice and vegetation and climate sensitivity may evolve over time.
      Armed with these tools, Zeebe was able to make new predictions about long-term future climate change.
      “The calculations showed that man-made climate change could be more severe and take even longer than we thought before,” says Zeebe.
      Although we will not see immediate effects by tomorrow — some of the slow processes will only respond over centuries to millennia — the consequences for long-term ice melt and sea level rise could be substantial, Zeebe concludes.
      “Politicians may think in four-year terms, but we, as scientists, can and should think in much longer terms. We need to put the impact that humans have on this planet into a historic and geologic context.
      “By continuing to put these huge amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we’re gambling with climate, and the outcome is still uncertain.”
      For more, see pnas.org. To comment on or “Like” this story, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.

2013 Margaret Brent Award recipients, from left, are Judge Gladys Kessler, Sara Holtz, Therese M. Stewart,
Sen. Mazie Hirono and Marygold Shire Melli. Photo from abanow.org

SEN. MAZIE K. HIRONO, HAWAI`I’S FIRST female senator and the first Asian-Pacific American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, is one of five outstanding female attorneys honored with the 2013 Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award. Hirono received the award, given annually by the American Bar Association Commission on Women in the Profession, on Aug. 11 at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco during ABA’s Annual Meeting. 

      “The Margaret Brent Awards celebrate the extraordinary achievements of female lawyers who have significantly contributed to the advancement of women in the profession,” said Mary B. Cranston, chair of the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession. “Our honorees’ accomplishments serve as an inspiration to women throughout the nation.”
      “During my time in both the legal and political spheres, I have been committed to public service and being a voice for the underrepresented,” Hirono said. “I have consistently supported consumers, children and immigrants throughout my career.”
      As a student at University of Hawai`i at Manoa, Hirono’s dedication to helping underserved populations grew. “Through volunteer and tutor work, as well as weekly visits with patients at the state mental health facility, I saw how important it was for underserved populations to have advocates listen to their concerns,” she said. “I pursued a law education so I could be a more effective advocate. Since I was interested in public interest law, I went to Georgetown for its quality clinical program. I was accepted into the Institute for Public Representation.”
      Hirono’s passion for advocating for those who cannot advocate for themselves eventually helped her get elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where she served Hawai`i’s 2nd district from 2007 to 2013.
      Throughout her career, she broke through many barriers. She is also the first Buddhist in the Senate.
      “The Senate is a challenging place, but I am looking forward to building relationships with my colleagues,” Hirono said. “My focus is on creating jobs, fixing immigration and making sure kids can get an excellent education.”
      For more, see abanow.org.
      To comment on or “Like” this story, go to facebook.com/kaucalendar.

Ka`u Coffee Festival 2013 airs on Channel 54 this evening. Keoki
Kahumoku and his `ukulele students performed at the May event.
Photo by Julia Neal

KA`U COFFEE FESTIVAL airs on Na Leo O Hawai`i Channel 54 today at 6 p.m. The 51-minute program was produced by Wendell Kaehuaea, who, along with Bobby Tucker, interviewed and filmed participants and some of the thousands of people who attended. 

A FREE TEA CULTIVATION AND PRODUCTION workshop sponsored by The Kohala Center takes place at Pahala Plantation House tomorrow from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Tea grower Eva Lee leads the workshop. To register, call 928-9811.

SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS AT PAHALAPLANTATIONCOTTAGES.COM AND KAUCOFFEEMILL.COM. KA`U COFFEE MILL IS OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.

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