Petition: Support the Indigenous peoples voices call on Harvard to shut down the SCoPEx project
Petition to shut down the SCoPEx project
In early 2021, Saami Council was contacted and notified about a planned test by the project called SCoPEx (Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment) based at Harvard University. The SCoPEx project is a scientific experiment to advance understanding of stratospheric aerosols that could be relevant to solar geoengineering, also known as SRM - Solar Radiation Management.
The Saami Council was informed that after several unsuccessful plans to conduct field tests over U.S territory, the SCoPEx research team now moved their first part of the experiment to Sápmi. Apart from the possible negative consequences of the technology itself, Indigenous Peoples in the U.S underlined that the testing would violate the sacred relationship between Mother Earth and Father Sky and therefore stopped SCoPEx from proceeding. Following this, the research team turned towards the Swedish Space Corporation in Giron, Swedish part of Sápmi.
In the experiment, which would be used for modelling and predicting larger-scale effects of SAI, aerosols of calcium carbonate and other substances were to be released about 20 km above the Earth’s surface. While the testing itself would be small and potentially have no or minor impacts on the surrounding environment, Saami Council view these tests as a first step towards legitimizing SAI technology to be further developed. Saami Council considers solar geoengineering technology to be the direct opposite of the respect we as Indigenous Peoples are taught to treat nature with. Our Indigenous worldview has taught us that humans are part of nature and that we need to live respectfully and not exploit natural resources, so that we can hand over healthy ecosystems to future generations. Solar geoengineering technology puts humans as masters of nature to control the whole earth, even the atmosphere, which is completely new and foreign for us.
In late February, the Saami Council together with environmental organisations in Sweden sent an open letter to the SCoPEx advisory committee and underlined that there are no acceptable reasons for allowing the SCoPEx project to be conducted in Sweden or elsewhere. Saami Council have also addressed the Swedish government through a letter to the three ministries responsible for environment, research and enterprise.
At the end of March, the Swedish Space Corporation announced that they, in a joint decision together with Harvard, had decided not to carry out the planned test-flight in Giron in 2021, and postponed the platform launch of the project until 2022.
While the project’s experiment is now put on hold, our concerns are not. The unknown risks of climate manipulation are risks we cannot take for the sake of our future generations to come.
In June, Indigenous peoples drafted this open letter addressed to Harvard University.
Sign the petition to support the Indigenous peoples voices call on Harvard to shut down the SCoPEx project.