What is Wrong with these Pictures? Hawaii's Biggest Waste of Electricity!

On Sunday morning, I modify my otherwise set in stone boring daily routine.  After the usual morning musing, internet news briefs and must see daily webpages, a brief scan of annoying unanswered emails for the day, one cup of coffee, some fresh fruit, a load of laundry begun to cleanse the day of the sweat and grime of the previous one, I drive to Ala Moana Center, park and begin my journey.

I walk about 2 1/2 miles to Hilton Waikiki Beach Hotel (formally Prince Kuhio Hotel), find my way to MAC 24/7 and order my egg white omelet, with spinach,  sauteed onion and Swiss cheese buried inside, dry wheat toast and their version of breakfast potatoes.  A perfectly sized serving, mostly healthy, the waiters and waitresses now recognize me to the extent that I usually do not need to utter a word; my order goes in automatically.

I am somehow able to navigate this Sunday morning's walk partially by taking advantage of beach walking trails and side walks to allow me to enjoy the beauty of the Waikiki beach and pristine ocean.  There I also enjoy the morning serving of families walking together, homeless people scrounging for food and begging for handouts, overweight men and women spewing over their bathing suits with formless sun baked flesh, children bobbing aimlessly to make my path more difficult to pass them, and the occasional beautiful creature that emerges without notice to jolt my senses for the moment that I allow my eyes to lock in on their beauty without causing too much notice.

After the beach comes the boring street segment in Waikiki to get to my destination.  I decided to walk along Kalakaua Ave which is flanked on both sides by an endless line of expensive glittering shops expressly intended to lure foreign tourists into. Not surprisingly, they were mostly empty this Sunday morning. What I haven't paid much attention to - until yesterday was something that is shown in the pictures above.  Indeed, what is wrong with these pictures? 

This morning was particularly warm or hot depending upon your internal thermostat.  Walking past these shops, shop doors wide open with air conditioned chilled air shooting at you as if someone was hosing you down with cold water, I could no longer ignore this flagrant waste of energy.  Now I suppose the theory is that potential customers will be more likely to enter these shops through doors that are open than if they had to take the trouble to open the door themselves. And indeed, there may be some evidence for the success of this strategy.  But can anyone imagine what a waste of energy this represents.....

I continued my walk and estimated that at least for this Sunday, about 75% of these high end shops (and a load of low end shops as well...like the ABC stores) kept their doors wide open. I actually went inside one shop and tried to quiz one finely dressed attendant about this policy.  He told me that keeping the doors open was store policy and that within minutes of closing their doors, the shop becomes so cold it is intolerable. I could not pry from him the monthly electricity bill; either he was too embarrassed to divulge this or he was truly uninformed.  I can only imagine that this level of wasteful energy is exceeding costly, ESPECIALLY in Hawaii where we have the country's highest electricity charges.  I could only imagine that the electricity bill for the month might even equal or exceed the monthly rent. Am I way off on this?

Who pays for this waste?  Is this why everything in these shops costs 10x more than it should?  How can we allow such wasteful energy dumping when electricity production in Hawaii is near its limits of production, and when fossil fuel is what produces the electricity in the first place?  This is occurring at at time when we in Hawaii are doing everything we can to conserve energy, support alternate forms of energy production and have a number of wildly successful programs to encourage home owners and commercial entities to install photovoltaic systems, purchase electric cars, and support other forms of green energy.  

Indeed, I dipped into retirement funds to get my PV system and electric car.  My electricity bill is now $16/ most months including the energy to charge my Nissan Leaf.  Something needs to be done to outlaw this practice of dumping energy in Waikiki. Does anyone have any idea?

After leaving MAC24, I pondered this situation while catching the bus back to Ala Moana Center.  With my Medicare card, it only cost one dollar, and it allowed me to continue my Sunday adventure to the very end.  I concentrated on the rest of the day, my dance practice in the next few hours, and finding my way to Times Supermarket to purchase the last few items needed for my evening salad creation.  Waikiki was no longer on my mind.

Unfortunately, I woke up this morning more upset than yesterday... determined to somehow call attention to this situation and to put an end to the wasteful energy dumping in Waikiki.  Only if I had a clue what to do to make it happen.................