Déjà Vu All Over Again

This issue marks the end of our 50th anniversary year as Hawaii's business magazine, but as big a milestone as it was for us it now seems like ancient history as we focus on the coming new year and what the next 50 years of business in Hawaii will bring. One of our goals for HB continues to be that it serves as an agent for positive change to the extent that our coverage brings good information to the business community that helps enable it to move Hawaii in the right direction. Some problems, of course, remain resistant to change, so you may see them pop up more than once in HB.

One such issue is energy. It's been covered before in HB, but as gas prices skyrocketed this past fall and we debated the merits of Hawaii's Gas Cap law, it cries out for more attention. I thought about this recently when I decided to make a side-trip to Costco in Iwilei to tank up. As I drove down Dillingham and approached Alakawa where Costco's gas station is located, I could see the right lane backed up all the way to the corner, filled with cars waiting their turn at the pump. I flashbacked to the gas lines of the 1970s, and I couldn't help but feel that this was not simply déjà vu all over again but a sign of things to come, but much worse.

Again, the world is running out of oil, but the more immediate problem is that we are no longer producing enough oil to meet the growing demand. The current buzzword for the situation is "Peak Oil" which refers to the point at which oil production stops growing or reaches its peak and begins to decline. Domestic production peaked 30 years ago, and world-wide production will peak in the next few years. Meanwhile, demand for oil continues to grow. We all know that as demand grows and supply diminishes, prices go up. So it's inevitable that gas prices will rise, and before long we'll be looking back nostalgically at when gas was only $3.64 per gallon the same way we baby boomers now fondly remember the days of $0.29 per gallon. The more important thing to keep in mind, however, is that while most of us think about oil only in terms of gas for our cars, we guzzle oil in far greater quantities to make thousands of other products that are even more essential to our lives, including our food and clothing, than gas for our cars is. So unless something drastic is done, it won't be just gas prices that will go through the roof.

The real question is why the powers that be are not doing more both to alert the public to what a critical situation this is and to take meaningful steps to address the problem. Of course it is not just a governmental but a societal problem, one on which our loudest voices need to speak, that is, those of our business community. The catastrophe that resulted from Hurricane Katrina will be manini compared to this impending crisis, and when it hits, I'm sure we don't want to remember how Katrina was handled and wonder if it's déjà vu all over again.

So happy holidays. We look forward to making HB an even more important part of your lives in 2006.

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