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Saami indigenous back down Gates-funded geoengineering experiment

8 points by eecc 6y ago

monkeydreams 6y ago
So the hazard of doing controlled tests is that we end up using the technology? The risk of not doing the experiment is that we don't use the technology in a controlled fashion and end up having to use it in a panic? That is the world making the same mistake we made with nuclear power in the eighties and nineties.
- neolog 6y ago
  > when an entity has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it does not bear the full costs of that risk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard
  - monkeydreams 6y ago
    > when an entity has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it does not bear the full costs of that risk This is an experiment. It does not constitute a moral hazard. How about, rather than posting a wikipedia page, you explain HOW this is a moral hazard and how shutting down an experiment is the better move? The greater moral hazard is the one where protestors shut down the testing and we are impacted negatively by climate change as a result. We have seen this with nuclear power, where delays in development and rollout of safer nuclear power have led us to our current scenario where coal stations are still being planned and built.
    - neolog 6y ago
      I dunno exactly how the argument goes. You could probably come up with one or two though.
015UUZn8aEvW 6y ago
"the indigenous people over whose heads it would take place, the Saami of northern Scandinavia." It's never been clear to me why the Saami are "indigenous" but average Swedes, Finns, and Norwegians aren't.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > It's never been clear to me why the Saami are "indigenous" but average Swedes, Finns, and Norwegians aren't. Because while Scandinavians were in Southern Scandinavia before Saami were in Northern Scandinavia, the Saami were in Northern Scandinavia for millenia before the Scandinavians were, so, in terms of northern Scandinavia, the Saami and not the Scandinavians are indigenous.
- timonoko 6y ago
  Nobody actually knows what people were in deep north 10000 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komsa_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komsa_culture But they were definitely not Saami. If they were ancestors they could be called Proto-Finnic, from which Saami arose 3000-5000 years ago. The 10000 year Saami story was mostly pushed by Norwegians, because stating that people of Finnmark were ancestors of Finns, it may cause land claims aka "Greater Finland". They even invented new ethnicity for Finns who moved to Norway in 1800's.
- tomdell 6y ago
  I think it more to do with the historical lifestyle and culture - Swedes, Finns and Norwegians have been integrated into the continental mainstream of settled agriculture and Christianity for centuries while Saami held out as a more nomadic, hunter-gatherer culture for most of modernity.
zeeed 6y ago
It escapes me how a group of educated scholars could think going to another country and meddle with the nature and weather there would be in any way acceptable, let alone all the risks that the Saami actually and correctly called out. I think that’s utterly ridiculous and only topped by “The group said it has begun a public engagement process to ‘help the committee understand Swedish and Indigenous perspectives [...]” As in they actually needed HELP in understanding that someone else lives where they were going to run their experiment. I can think of a couple of “interesting” scenarios that come up when “party A spreads stuff in the sky over party B without telling them first”. Many of them involve unfriendly conversations.

8 points by eecc 6y ago

So the hazard of doing controlled tests is that we end up using the technology? The risk of not doing the experiment is that we don't use the technology in a controlled fashion and end up having to use it in a panic? That is the world making the same mistake we made with nuclear power in the eighties and nineties.

neolog 6y ago
> when an entity has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it does not bear the full costs of that risk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard
- monkeydreams 6y ago
  > when an entity has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it does not bear the full costs of that risk This is an experiment. It does not constitute a moral hazard. How about, rather than posting a wikipedia page, you explain HOW this is a moral hazard and how shutting down an experiment is the better move? The greater moral hazard is the one where protestors shut down the testing and we are impacted negatively by climate change as a result. We have seen this with nuclear power, where delays in development and rollout of safer nuclear power have led us to our current scenario where coal stations are still being planned and built.
  - neolog 6y ago
    I dunno exactly how the argument goes. You could probably come up with one or two though.

015UUZn8aEvW 6y ago

"the indigenous people over whose heads it would take place, the Saami of northern Scandinavia." It's never been clear to me why the Saami are "indigenous" but average Swedes, Finns, and Norwegians aren't.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> It's never been clear to me why the Saami are "indigenous" but average Swedes, Finns, and Norwegians aren't. Because while Scandinavians were in Southern Scandinavia before Saami were in Northern Scandinavia, the Saami were in Northern Scandinavia for millenia before the Scandinavians were, so, in terms of northern Scandinavia, the Saami and not the Scandinavians are indigenous.
timonoko 6y ago
Nobody actually knows what people were in deep north 10000 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komsa_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Komsa_culture But they were definitely not Saami. If they were ancestors they could be called Proto-Finnic, from which Saami arose 3000-5000 years ago. The 10000 year Saami story was mostly pushed by Norwegians, because stating that people of Finnmark were ancestors of Finns, it may cause land claims aka "Greater Finland". They even invented new ethnicity for Finns who moved to Norway in 1800's.
tomdell 6y ago
I think it more to do with the historical lifestyle and culture - Swedes, Finns and Norwegians have been integrated into the continental mainstream of settled agriculture and Christianity for centuries while Saami held out as a more nomadic, hunter-gatherer culture for most of modernity.

zeeed 6y ago

It escapes me how a group of educated scholars could think going to another country and meddle with the nature and weather there would be in any way acceptable, let alone all the risks that the Saami actually and correctly called out. I think that’s utterly ridiculous and only topped by “The group said it has begun a public engagement process to ‘help the committee understand Swedish and Indigenous perspectives [...]” As in they actually needed HELP in understanding that someone else lives where they were going to run their experiment. I can think of a couple of “interesting” scenarios that come up when “party A spreads stuff in the sky over party B without telling them first”. Many of them involve unfriendly conversations.