Victoria Marshall writes for the Federalist about recent developments involving a high-profile climate activist.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg was reportedly detained by Oslo police last week for blocking the entrances of Norway’s energy and finance ministries with 12 other protesters. In a video of the incident that went viral on Twitter, Thunberg is picked up and carried away from the scene of the protest by Norwegian authorities.
Given Thunberg’s reputation as the 20-year-old who lectures world leaders on their inadequate strategies for addressing climate change, it’s odd that the Swedish activist is siding against the environmentalist lobby this time around. Instead, Thunberg is standing with the indigenous Sami, who use Norway’s Fosen peninsula as grazing ground for reindeer, which they use for the animals’ meat, hide, and antlers. The Sami people claim this centuries-old tradition is put at risk by the construction of 151 wind turbines on the land.
“The constructions are stealing the reindeer’s grazing land,” reindeer herder and Sámi politician Maja Kristine Jåma told CNN. Because they violated the rights of the Sami by infringing on their grazing land, the wind turbines are still operating nearly a year and a half later.
Why? Wind turbines are a crucial plank in Norway’s push for green energy. Hydropower made up over 90 percent of electricity generated in Norway in 2020, and wind power, which has reportedly grown tenfold as a share of the country’s electricity sources in the last 10 years, comes in second. It’s all part of the Nordic country’s plan, under the Paris climate agreement, to reduce carbon emissions by some-55 percent by 2030. So no wonder the Norwegian government doesn’t want to give up its largest wind farm to some reindeer herders.
The United States is set to follow suit. …
… Yet nowhere in the Biden plan is there mention of its potential environmental hazards.
