How Politics is Like Surfing

Josh Stanbro developed and led the Office of Climate, Sustainability and Resilience for the City and County of Honolulu as its first Chief Resilience Officer. Josh is now in Washington DC and is Deputy Director of the Policy Lab with Elemental Excelerator, a global nonprofit accelerator for climate tech which was founded in Hawai’i. 

 His path from California to Hawai’i of itself tells a valuable story of 21st Century Hawai’i. And because Hawai’i was once and hopes to again be a place of sustainable agriculture, his previous work at the Trust for Public Land and the Hawai’i Community Foundation, leading up to the Mayor’s office,  tells a story of the transformation efforts underway, and the expanding reach of the Hawai’ian Renaissance.  

 From Josh we learn about the landmark case on Hawai’ian property law that inspired him to go to law school; about the sustainable agriculture projects he worked on while at the Trust for Public Land and the Hawai’i Community Foundation. We talk about the dozen good reasons to buy local; about inclusive, community driven governance; and how politics is like surfing. 

Overall we get some info on Hawai’ian activist history, a fair amount of historical and modern land use info, and a lot of good wisdom about leadership in governing.  And finally, we learn what three wishes he would have, to help Hawai’i achieve its Aloha Plus challenge goal of getting to 30% locally grown food by 2030.

For more info: 

Elemental Excelerator

The Resilience Office of the City and County of Honolulu

The Hawai'i Community Foundation 

The Trust for Public Land, Hawai'i 

Credits: 

• Sound editing: Keola Iseri of the University of Hawai’i, West Oahu and Rob Pera
• Logo design: Sue Woodard, and Waipahu High School student Reiko Quitevis 
• Theme music: Waipahu High Schools students  Caryssa Shinozawa, Landon Guzman, Syd Sausal