This is bogus. "Eco-tourism" is unsustainable when it involves flying in a petrol-guzzling jetplane to a Pacific island. Stepping out of your dirty polluting jet into a biodiesel beetle is pure bourgeois nonsense.
This is rentals-as-hypocritical-as-usual.

any step helps!! baby steps is key, we can't convert to a sustainable culture overnight.

it's like voting. people say "my vote won't matter", but it does. It is the accumulation of votes that matters. If more and more rental companies switched to vehicles powered on cooking oil, it will reduce our emissions and dependency on foreign oil!

If one were going to Hawaii anyway (as many people do) isn't it nice to know this option would be available? Assuming people would travel to Hawaii just to rent a car seems a little silly. And what about the locals who happen to *already* live in Hawaii? I'm sure they rent cars from time to time...

Still, even then it remains bogus. Owning a car in Hawaii is criminal. The island can walked accross on foot in a day.
Did you know that a car in Hawaii is a machine that wastes 99.5 gallons of fuel for every gallon of fuel that it effectively uses to transport people?
Cars in Hawaii are nonsense.
Even biodiesel cars. You need more petroleum to ship your Beetle to Hawaii than you'll ever save when you use biodiesel.
People must stop believing and legitimizing their bourgeois myths.

Sorry Diane, I've got to agree with the other guys. Yes, Hawaii was at one time a perfect ideal of balanced ecology. But probably only way before humans got there. In order to get back to a real sustainable infrastructure in Hawaii, or anywhere, we have to change our currently held ideals, and offer new ones which give people more utility, pleasure, fun, or something else. Regression to some hippy-esque fantasy of barefoot bliss is a dead end.
Remember that the market, not idealism drives everything (that's capitalism for you). People are going to take advantage of situations which will make money, and cars are one of those situations, even on a tiny island.

Now, if you had suggested a shoe-rental company, or something to make people interested in walking over driving I would have been interested :)

Cheers,
-Dominic (the author)

Mmm, true. An analysis that does more than scratching the surface must be hippie, regressive and a fantasy! :-)

Let's be serious. This blog is not the place to analyze things in a serious way. I think we can both agree on this. Treehugger and its contributers don't pretend to be such a place, so no blame there.

It's just that a lot of people show a natural reaction of disbelief when they see people writing about such things as "sustainability" while actually saying nothing at all about it! We must all learn to control our natural rational instincts. We must learn to say: "this is cool, because someone else says it is so".

Renting a bio-beetles (alliteration!) in Hawaii is cool.

it's a nice dream, but good luck convincing everyone in hawaii not to drive, diane. and then convincing all the tourists not to fly there. the fact is, people will go there no matter how much you preach and many will drive. unfortunately, not everyone can walk or cares about the planet as much as we do. it seems using biodiesel in place of gasoline is a reduction in emissions any way you cut it and that is to your point, not a final solution, but it is a positive step.

Diane, your words are noble if not a bit irrational. Unless you're COMPLETELY off the grid, organically growing 100% of your own food and recycling 100% of your own waste, it's a sure bet you yourself have contributed (and will continue to contribute) to climate change, rainforest destruction, and any number of other grievances against the planet.The fact you were able to type your comments here is additional proof of your impact, no matter how minimal. I think this idea is wonderful and a step in the right direction.

i know i'm late chiming in here, but i'd also like to point out that you cannot walk accross any of the hawaii islands in a day. especially the island of hawaii, it's massive, about the size of texas.

First off, the beetles probably arrive by ship. Seapower is about the most efficient way to move anything. Biodiesel seapower...now that's what I'm talking about!

Clearly, no one (myself included) lives on Hawaii. The island of Hawaii is 90 or so miles accross which takes a person running a 4 minute mile 6 hours, and the return trip another 6 hours. So if you can sustain that pace carrying all your gear indefinately, go you. For the rest of us who can reasonably walk 3 mph for an extended period, so that's a 30 hour walk one way. I don't know about you, but I think my legs would get tired. I'd rather take a biodiesel car for 2 hours to accomplish the same distance and still have time to eat lunch.

Though also it's worth noting that this is for Maui and Oahu islands, not Hawaii island. Oahu is 30 miles accross, and Maui is bigger. Do the rest of the math yourselves.

So while going to Hawaii may not be the best choice in the world for ecofriendliness, if it catches on there, maybe it'll catch on elsewhere. Here's hoping