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Hawaii Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Building Thirty Meter Telescope

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Re: Hawaii Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Building Thirty Meter Telescope

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The autonomy and sovereignty of continental tribes is severely curtailed by the US claim of plenary authority over them. They are independent nations largely in name only.

> They are independent nations largely in name only. I was under the impression that the "independent nations" concept implied independence from the states. Naturally as the power in the US has shifted away from the states towards the federal government the autonomy and sovereignty of the tribes has decreased.

At least for those with actual reservations and treaties they are allowed quite a bit of self governance and such. They can make their own laws, form a government as they wish, tax, regulate, decide who is a member and such.

That has not changed at all.

It sounds strange, and it kind of is, but in reality life on a reservation in most cases is rough, few options to make a living, lots of substance abuse, tribal politics can be pretty petty and nasty. I lived near a reservation for a while and the first thing you think "oh man they have this nation inside a nation they could do a lot of things" but really life is rough there.

Re: Hawaii Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Building Thirty Meter Telescope

#72
post #50
post #3

The actual legal issues in question are barely touched on in the article: > But some environmentalists and Native Hawaiian groups say the spread of observatories on the summit has polluted the mountain, interfering with traditional cultural and religious practices, or are actually infringing on the sovereignty of the Hawaiian kingdom. The links in the article to the actual decisions are broken (for me at least) The a…

Hawaii is in a unique position because there are still plenty of native Hawaiians around. They arent a native tribe recognized by the U.S. government and some number (most in my mind) dont want to be. Because the overthrow of the last government of the Kingdom of Hawaii was done under shady conditions (basically the sugar barons formed a provisional government and then told the U.S. that they'd like to become a part…

>The thing is, when Hawaiians protest its hard to figure out who or how many they represent. Because there is no official Hawaiian government. (There is the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA). But dont even get me started. lol) So no one can say "Hawaiians dont want the thirty meter telescope (TMT)". You can only say, "those people protesting over there dont want the TMT".

You can get a sense from polling http://www.staradvertiser.com/2018/03/25/hawaii-news/support...

>My instinct is that a large amount of this particular protest springs forth from the students of the University of Hawaii.

You're partially right. The protests are fueled largely by sovereignty activists, some of whom are trained as sovereignty activists in the University of Hawaii School of Hawaiian knowledge, which is sort of a de facto sovereignty training camp. The dean is a vocal sovereignty activist.

> If Hawaiians block the one road up the mountain, and are willing to get arrested on a daily basis, its hard to imagine that any politician would back the continued construction.

Not true. This is exactly what happened with the solar telescope on Maui, and for the exact same reasons. The protesters were arrested in the streets and construction continued. There has been no decrease in support.

Re: Hawaii Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Building Thirty Meter Telescope

#73

I visited the top of Mauna Kea a couple of months ago, as a tourist. It is a fascinating place, already so populated with telescopes that it is tough to imagine how adding another (likely built more carefully than older ones) could cause grave damage, interference with other uses of the area, etc. On the other hand: some of the telescopes have been there many years and are probably somewhat obsolete by today's standa…

> Perhaps one of the existing structures could have been removed to make room for the TMT, to lessen conflict. TMT project will in fact remove three old telescopes.

Wow, great piece of info, seems very relevant to the dispute.

Re: Hawaii Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Building Thirty Meter Telescope

#74

I visited the top of Mauna Kea a couple of months ago, as a tourist. It is a fascinating place, already so populated with telescopes that it is tough to imagine how adding another (likely built more carefully than older ones) could cause grave damage, interference with other uses of the area, etc. On the other hand: some of the telescopes have been there many years and are probably somewhat obsolete by today's standa…

>> it is tough to imagine how adding another one could cause grave damage This issue was brought up on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast several years when the problem first surfaced. I think the problem the islanders have is there are so many telescopes on the island already. Adding another one is simply piling on, in their view.

see the peer comment though. The thing I had asked about, was less than what is actually being done! It sounds like the project will actually result in a net reduction of two telescopes.

Keeping that in mind, and the physics of the situation regarding elevation and atmosphere etcetera, it's tough to side with the protesters on this specific dispute.

Re: Hawaii Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Building Thirty Meter Telescope

#75
post #3

The actual legal issues in question are barely touched on in the article: > But some environmentalists and Native Hawaiian groups say the spread of observatories on the summit has polluted the mountain, interfering with traditional cultural and religious practices, or are actually infringing on the sovereignty of the Hawaiian kingdom. The links in the article to the actual decisions are broken (for me at least) The a…

>"... Hawaiian Kingdom"

Who is the king of Hawaii?

Re: Hawaii Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Building Thirty Meter Telescope

#76
post #3

The actual legal issues in question are barely touched on in the article: > But some environmentalists and Native Hawaiian groups say the spread of observatories on the summit has polluted the mountain, interfering with traditional cultural and religious practices, or are actually infringing on the sovereignty of the Hawaiian kingdom. The links in the article to the actual decisions are broken (for me at least) The a…

I think the BBC report that I submitted earlier this morning [0] did a better job of discussing the environmentalists' case. In particular, it linked to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs's civil complaint [1] which is probably the best version of the arguments against the telescope. Summary: the complaint alleges that mismanagement of the telescope site, including poor financial planning and procedural issues, has led t…

For further background, here's Will Falk, one of the earliest protest organizers, explaining his reasons for protesting -

https://deepgreenresistancegreatbasin.org/civilization/colon...

Re: Hawaii Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Building Thirty Meter Telescope

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the BBC report that I submitted earlier this morning [0] did a better job of discussing the environmentalists' case. In particular, it linked to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs's civil complaint [1] which is probably the best version of the arguments against the telescope. Summary: the complaint alleges that mismanagement of the telescope site, including poor financial planning and procedural issues, has led t…

So it sounds like it's less that the entire enterprise is offensive on the face of it (like building on Uluru in Australia would be), and more that the locals don't trust the management to be respectful of the land and not fuck shit up?

That's the sort of argument that was made in court, but see the link I posted above for more background on why they feel so strongly about this.

Re: Hawaii Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Building Thirty Meter Telescope

#78
post #3

The actual legal issues in question are barely touched on in the article: > But some environmentalists and Native Hawaiian groups say the spread of observatories on the summit has polluted the mountain, interfering with traditional cultural and religious practices, or are actually infringing on the sovereignty of the Hawaiian kingdom. The links in the article to the actual decisions are broken (for me at least) The a…

>"... Hawaiian Kingdom" Who is the king of Hawaii?

David Kalakaua was the last one, in 1882.

http://www.royalty.nu/America/Hawaii.html

Re: Hawaii Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Building Thirty Meter Telescope

#79

>Thirty Meter astronomers had said if they didn’t get a green light to build on Mauna Kea, they would build it on La Palma in the Canary Islands, off Africa. Good for them

I had the impression this was more of a negotiating tactic than an actual plan. But this is like fourth-hand rumor.

Re: Hawaii Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Building Thirty Meter Telescope

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the BBC report that I submitted earlier this morning [0] did a better job of discussing the environmentalists' case. In particular, it linked to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs's civil complaint [1] which is probably the best version of the arguments against the telescope. Summary: the complaint alleges that mismanagement of the telescope site, including poor financial planning and procedural issues, has led t…

So it sounds like it's less that the entire enterprise is offensive on the face of it (like building on Uluru in Australia would be), and more that the locals don't trust the management to be respectful of the land and not fuck shit up?

There are people who consider Mauna Kea to be sacred and there's not really anything that could argue against a specific person's particular belief.

However I will say that there is no widespread religious activity involving the top of the mountain. There are far more people performing ceremonies and leaving sacrifices at Kilauea or even just various heiau, a type of man-made temple site. Even that is a very low proportion of native Hawaiians.

People feel respectful of it and it has widespread meaning but these feelings are barely above average compared to the respect felt for all other geographical regions and features of Hawaii.

My point here is that there's no substantive disruption to anyone's religious expression.

Even these religious activities are pretty rare, as Christianity was pushed pretty hard once missionaries converted the royalty in the 19th century.

Most of the time when people are against building telescopes, the conversation seems to carry on to reveal that it's kind of a proxy used to air greivances for the long history of ethno-political issues.

There was a reference above referring to the telescopes as a violation of the Kingdom of Hawaii which hasn't existed for over a century- to include a telescope under that standard you would literally require the formation of a new country. Obviously in that case, building a dog house by the ocean would be equally impermissible.

Ancient Hawaiians took their religion very very seriously, and still had quarries up there due to high quality stone availability, so they didn't seem to think technological exploitation was much of an affront.

From what I know about Uluru, it's far more significant to a much larger swath of people, and it's a much smaller area than a whole mountain.

Someone could have a different perspective than I do or might know something that would invalidate some of the points I made, and I welcome the input.

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