Respecting this constitutional structure is especially critical in matters of war and foreign policy. Our nation cannot call itself a democracy when Congress, the “people’s branch,” is abdicating its war-making authority to the president while lives are at stake and economies are faltering.
The following editorial was originally published in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Sunday, August 2nd, 2026 as part of the “Raise Your Hand” column in the Insight section.
By: Isabella Poponi: Pearl City High School c/o '25
The climate movement promised transformation. The Paris Agreement aimed to limit global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. It’s now 2026, and experts are saying the world is on track to exceed that target. The problem isn’t simply that we’ve fallen short of our goals, but that the movement has become disconnected from the communities and environments it claims to serve. Increasingly, the climate movement has become too centralized, with large environmental NGOs shaping its priorities while facing little accountability. In the process, the movement has lost sight of what actually matters: protecting the environment itself.
Environmental NGOs love to tout renewable energy as the primary solution to climate change without acknowledging its downsides. Solar panels, for example, require fossil fuels to manufacture and produce a huge amount of harmful waste in our landfills. Solar panel companies cannot justify recycling this waste, given that it costs $30 to recycle a single panel compared with roughly $1 to throw it in a landfill. As more panels reach the end of their lifespan over the coming decade, this waste challenge will intensify. The climate movement promises solutions, but no one is held responsible for the unintended consequences.
The problem also extends to how corporations use “net zero” pledges to placate environmentally conscious consumers without meaningfully reducing emissions. Meat processor JBS, for example, has promised to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040, yet the company’s actual emissions increased by 50% between 2016 and 2021. Amazon also claims it offsets its emissions by planting trees, but it would need to plant trees over an area the size of Costa Rica annually to match its actual output. These examples illustrate how ambitious climate promises often function more as public relations campaigns than as measurable progress.
The worst part of the problem is that the NGOs meant to hold these companies accountable have prioritized profit over protecting the environment. Organizations like the World Wildlife Fund, Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, the Environmental Defense Fund, and Conservation International have received funding from corporations like Coca-Cola, Clorox, British Petroleum, Shell Oil, Unilever, McDonald’s, Boeing, Monsanto, Starbucks, Walmart, and Ikea, in exchange for their stamp of approval. Moreover, the CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Society was paid nearly $1.5 million in 2025 while the CEO of the World Wildlife Fund was paid $1.2 million, making them among the highest-paid charity CEOs.
It’s the big-name NGOs that have forgotten the mission at hand. These groups act more like marketing firms for the climate movement than as defenders of actual places and ecosystems. The top-down, abstract nature of climate activism allows them to thrive without ever protecting anything.
Local environmental organizations are far less susceptible to these temptations. They see the environmental issues in their daily lives and are supported by people with an actual stake in the outcomes. For example, the Hawaii Agricultural Research Center works to stop the koa wilt disease infecting Hawaii’s native forests. These projects address specific ecological challenges that directly affect local communities, not “climate change” as a whole. And because they are funded by grants, contracts, and community donations, local organizations are accountable to the people they serve.
The mainstream climate movement has become too broad, too corporate, and too driven by greed. By prioritizing sweeping political goals over local needs, it has lost sight of the practical work required to protect the environment. Meaningful progress will not come from global organizations alone, but from communities taking responsibility for the ecosystems around them.
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