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Celebrity environmental activist Greta Thunberg spent Monday chaining herself to the entrance of the Norway Ministry of Energy to protest wind farms that run through land used for centuries by the Indigenous Sami to herd reindeer.
Have we reached peak absurdity when enviros are now protesting green-energy projects?
The 20-year was on hand to meet with environmental groups and the Sami to call for the turbines at Storheia and Roanto sites to be torn down.
“Indigenous rights, human rights, must go hand-in-hand with climate protection and climate action,” Thunberg told Reuters. “That can’t happen at the expense of some people. Then it is not climate justice.”
Here she is joined by protesters from the Young Friends of The Earth Norway and the Norwegian Sami Association’s youth council NSR-Nuorat, who have all chained themselves. Thunberg frankly looks bored and miserably cold:
The turbines are an affront to human rights, she says in the clip:
I am here to support the struggle for human rights and indigenous rights. The Norwegian state is violating human rights and that is completely unnaccepable.
The reason the protestors want the turbines removed: reindeer herders say the sight and sound of the 151 huge machines scare the animals and disrupt centuries-old migration patterns. The wind farms, located on the Fosen peninsula in central Norway, can power about 100,000 Norwegian households.
The country’s Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that the two farms violated Sami rights, but the court did not provide an explicit ruling on what should happen next—so they’re still in operation. They’re part of a $1.3 billion project that makes up Europe’s largest onshore wind farm.
The country’s supreme court ruled construction of the turbines a violation of Indigenous Sami people’s rights, but didn’t say what should be done about it. https://t.co/1qnEnbWshy
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The Sami want justice:
“We are here to demand that the turbines must be torn down and that legal rights must be respected,” said Sami singer-songwriter, actress and activist Ella Marie Haetta Isaksen.
She and a dozen other Sami demonstrators had occupied the ministry’s reception area since Thursday. Police forcibly removed them around 2:30 a.m (1:30 GMT) on Monday and detained them before releasing them.
Last month I wrote about reports of massive turbines falling over due to rushed, poor engineering. They’re also a hazard to birds—notably golden eagles—and require huge swathes of land. In short, Thunberg’s protests along with those of the Sami actually have some merit—surely these massive farms are having an environmental impact.
The irony is inescapable, however. Thunberg has been a vocal leader in demanding green energy, and yet here she is protesting it. You can’t have it both ways, Greta. if you and other climate change warriors insist on ending the use of fossil fuels, we must find alternatives. You’re the one who asked for solar farms and wind turbines; now you’ve got them.
It’s the same old not-in-my-backyard attitude displayed by the late Senator Ted Kennedy when he argued for offshore wind turbines—just not where he could see them. Greta wants wind farms, just not here. Or over there. Or over there, either.
Many politicians and activists act as if moving to green, renewable energy is easy; all we have to do is flip a switch. The truth is, it’s a whole lot more complicated than that, and in the meantime, we’d be foolish to keep cramping our own fossil fuel energy supply.
We’ve definitely jumped the shark when one of the most famous green energy proponents in the world is now out protesting… green energy.
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