I have been asked recently if I really care about the environment by a few DM’s about some of my posts about my solar panel business. “Are you just trying to make a buck selling solar panels and batteries with climate change fear?” Here is my answer why I do what I do. I am going to share a story that made me double down on the business awhile back. A story that is very relevant to today’s world of #ClimateChange , #IndeginousRights , #pollution , #deforestation , #OceanPollution, #ProtectingNature that needs to be shared.

I work in the energy industry. The biggest industry in the world. One of the most coveted resources in the world today is energy. It is Geo-Political. It is one the most dynamic industries in the world. We are its customer 24/7/365. It is Climate Change. It is Environmental Destruction and Protection. It is cutting edge Tech. It Is cutting edge Finance. It is privacy, transactions, exchanges and the block chain. It is Macro Utility scale and Micro someone just trying to keep a light on and a cell phone charged. It is form and function. It is good design and system architecture.

10 years ago, I was approached by a venture when I was a couple years into working in the solar panel energy industry to work on a new project. The venture was selling coal and aiding the logistics of getting coal to the global market from mines and quarries in a SE Asian Country on the equator. This was at the time of peak oil prices at $160 a barrel in 2008. There was a huge opportunity to make some serious cash. My job was to work with the government officials and export the coal out of country and oversee the supply chain from mine to quarry to barge to mothership. This part of the world had always held a special place in my heart with my family’s history of exploring the wave rich nations and its exotic culture and wild jungles. I jumped at the opportunity. My only knowledge of this ancient island was when I was a kid, my Uncle Gerry acted in a Hollywood movie as a native warrior who fought against the Japanese Imperial Army during WW II alongside Allied troops in the island’s ancient deep dark jungle. Old very valuable land. I did as much research as I could before I left on the trip. Devouring any beautiful BBC David Attenborough movies of the jungle there and the animals in it. This island is one of the largest and oldest islands in the world located directly on the equator north of another island chain known for its rice paddies and perfect waves. It sits dead center in SE Asia. This forest is one of the oldest and most biodiverse places in the world. This jungle is also one of the last remaining homes of the great ape Orangutan. The ancient age of this land and its seam on the rim of fire volcano network also makes it very rich in natural resources like hard woods, coal, iron ore, copper and oil that have been extensively harvested at the expense of the natural world.

I had an idea what harvesting natural resources was, but I was shocked when I went visited the coal mines firsthand. From Hawaii it was 4 airplanes and 36 plus hours of traveling to land there. Then another 6-hour drive into the jungle to the mines. The jungle had long been burned and cleared for palm oil farms and rice paddies. Now the blackest topsoil was being scraped away for the coal and iron ore that sat just below the surface. The pictures tell the story greater than I ever could. It looked like the moon or a scene out of WWI frontlines scarred and burned from artillery. Dirty runoff from the tropical rains filling open pits and pumps pumping it out and downhill to the rivers. Crude oil and natural gas pumps and pipes sat everywhere and evidence of recent spills too. Smoke was in the air from recent forest and trash burns. Huge excavators and loaders were digging huge pits constantly where the jungle once stood everywhere. Foreign operators working for a few bucks a day drove brand new million-dollar bright yellow heavy equipment machines and slept in little shacks. From there, the coal was loaded onto barges in dirty rivers and floated down to the mothership waiting at the port down river and then on to be burned in power plants and factories somewhere in the bustling Asian market. This was/is the Global Energy Industry ground zero. The biggest industry in the world. Big Coal. Big Oil. Texas Tea. Tar Sands. Oil Cartels. Liquid Gold. Back Diamonds. V8 Power. Black Lung. The Industrial Revolution. Power. Energy. Waves of Energy pumped, squeezed, and dug out of the earth.

The coal industry is a dirty business figuratively and literally, especially in this country. And here was its dirty soot black face staring directly at me. It was absolutely depressing to see what greed looked like. There is no EPA or OSHA out in this jungle. Zero oversight except that the concession’s owners got their payment. Never before had I seen land so mugged and pillaged.

I had to wrap my head around committing to the project and justifying that commitment after everything I saw on that trip and the deep conflicted emotions that I felt. My business partner in the project told me if we don’t do it, somebody else definitely will so why not contribute to the project in a positive way. The real honest justification for saying yes was the opportunity to make big chunk of cash. Lucky and unlucky for me, the energy market fell out just as we were applying for work visas to make the land of left-hand tubes my new temporary outpost. I aborted. I came back to Maui a different man and vowed to sell more solar panels.

I am fully aware of the hypocrisy advocating for environmental protection and climate change when I look at my own life habits and what is around me. I drive a truck powered by fossil fuels to the solar panel job sites. My family’s heavy equipment built of iron operates on fossil fuels to change the land for development. We all drive cars every day. I see plastic everywhere. I use plastic all the time and it doesn’t get recycled every time even though I know I should. It’s not that easy. The infrastructure really is not in place. The surfboards that l love to ride are petroleum-based building materials and I have broken and gone through too many to count. That surf leash, same! I wear rubber slippers and eat food wrapped in plastic often. SMH. We are all guilty every day. This is the modern world we live in.

There is an environmental cost to the solar panel I sell to get it on the customer’s roof. But it is still way less environmentally expensive than the cost of doing nothing! We all take every day from the world. We need and must give back more.

This is me working off my energy debt and helping others do the same. My acknowledgement of such a massive tab with my name on it.

Do your part. Try. Start somewhere. I doubled down on selling solar panels after that trip. I try to recycle that I can. I try to pick up some trash when I leave the beach. Every solar panel I sell is less resources being taken from the earth and converted to energy. Less coal and diesel being burned at our local power plant. Do something. Turn the lights off. Carpool. Pick up some trash. Plant a garden if you can. Think if you really need that purchase and the waste that will come from it. What I advocate on the bottom line is awareness. Awareness of your everyday contribution positively and negatively to climate and our environment on a macro and micro level. No absent mind. Stay present of that running tab and operate with purpose. The environment and climate are being changed by humans every single minute of the day. Maybe if enough people are aware of their contribution, we can swing that contribution positively.