Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
United States Government Technology

Hawaii Extends Thirty Meter Telescope Permit Amid Protesters (npr.org) 154

In a move intended to de-escalate a standoff between scientists and native Hawaiians blocking the construction of a massive telescope on a mountaintop they believe to be sacred land, Gov. David Ige on Tuesday night rescinded an emergency proclamation that was issued to help remove demonstrators. NPR reports: Ige made the announcement at a press conference saying there are no immediate plans to move heavy construction equipment onto Mauna Kea, the intended site of the Thirty Meter Telescope, which is expected to be the largest in the world, looking farther back into space and time than any other instrument is capable of doing. "Because TMT construction is not imminent, I am withdrawing the emergency proclamation effective immediately," Ige said in a tweet. "I remain committed to moving forward with this project in a peaceful way and will continue efforts to engage the community."

He cautioned the large crowds who have gathered in protest at the base of the mountain since mid-July, when construction was set to start, of hazardous conditions "in light of the potential bad weather." Ige's move followed a decision by the Department of Land and Natural Resources to grant a two-year extension of the Conservation District Use permit deadline for the initiation of construction.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Hawaii Extends Thirty Meter Telescope Permit Amid Protesters

Comments Filter:
  • by StevenMaurer ( 115071 ) on Friday August 02, 2019 @02:14AM (#59027216) Homepage

    In March a poll was conducted [westhawaiitoday.com] that showed that 77% of the Hawai'ian public support building the 30 meter telescope (15% oppose and 8% are undecided). About 72 percent of of Hawaii native ancestry support the telescope.

    The protesters on the site are a grand total of 33 people [forbes.com], and seem mostly extremists who are using it as a proxy to push cultural grievances.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by gbooch ( 323588 )

      Steve,

      I live in Hawaii, you do not.

      To say it is just mostly extremists" is disingenuous, if not insulting. The circumstances are complex, but largely focus on the failure of the University of Hawaii to be proper stewards of the space.

      • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
        There's nothing complex there. A group of drunkards, junkies and welfare moochers gathered together and are saying that their feelings have to be placated, because they say so.
        • What a sad, little person you are.

          You know nothing about the nature of the protest.

          • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
            Yes, I also forgot to mention Hawaiian racists and secessionists. Very bad of me.
          • We do know about the nature of lawyers and the use of memes and activists (and "activists" in cahoots with lawyers) who want to get paid to get out of the way.

            It's a miracle instant apartment buildings didn't go up on the mountain so they'd have to buy them out to make room, as is regularly done in the proposed paths of highway extensions.

            • It's a miracle instant apartment buildings didn't go up on the mountain so they'd have to buy them out to make room, as is regularly done in the proposed paths of highway extensions.

              Since the land is owned by the State of Hawaii, putting up apartments in such a manner would be a neat trick to pull off.

          • What a sad, little person you are.

            You know nothing about the nature of the protest.

            I did a good bit of research some time back.

            Secessionists, religion, and racism pretty much round out the mix, with a lot of overlap.

            And those pesky haoles, amiright? Why don't they go back to where they belong.

          • of interest is the fact that there are SEVERAL other telescopes all close to this location, it is not the first time a telescope has been put there. All of the current telescopes have done great research. So, these people are protesting one more telescope, not 'a' telescope, but 'just another' telescope. So, yeah, nothing important.
        • They do this for love. The love for money.

          The usual result for such protests is a large payout for the bums; after which they go home for a month then return for more.

        • A group of drunkards, junkies and welfare moochers gathered together

          Damn, not only are you a bigger asshole than me, you sound like a dick.

          You don't know those fucking people. They're obviously a lot more ideological than logical - a bunch of gullible Hillary supporters to be sure - but you distinctly come across as their equal and opposite.

          • by Cyberax ( 705495 )

            You don't know those fucking people. They're obviously a lot more ideological than logical - a bunch of gullible Hillary supporters to be sure - but you distinctly come across as their equal and opposite.

            And yet I'm the one who's right: https://bigislandnow.com/2019/... [bigislandnow.com]

      • by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Friday August 02, 2019 @02:56AM (#59027338)

        The circumstances are complex, but largely focus on the failure of the University of Hawaii to be proper stewards of the space.

        The consortium building the TMT consulted with native groups at every step. They bent over backwards to accommodate everyone. The current group of protestors represent no one but themselves, and will be unsatisfied with nothing short of a complete cancellation of the project.

        The TMT is good science. It will allow us to take better than Hubble quality photos from the surface of the earth. It will also bring hundreds of temporary construction jobs, and 1500 permanent jobs. These are high paying jobs running the scope, and dealing the the daily petabytes of data collected.

        Those jobs are badly needed in a state dependent on low paying jobs in the tourism industry. Too many native Hawaiians spend their days cleaning toilets in vacation rentals for $10 per hour.

        Hawaii also has some of the worst schools in the nation. Part of that is because retired mainlanders have no stake in the schools, but much of it is also because low level workers see no benefit in education since there are so few jobs that use high level skills.

        The TMT is a step toward changing things, and is enthusiastically supported by most Hawaiians (native or not).

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          It's pretty obvious that a combination of apparently deep pockets, a desire to bend over backwards to accommodate "interests" and an institutional sensitivity to PC concerns is an obvious way to turn a profit for someone looking to exploit the situation.

          Usually the most expedient fix is to identify the ringleaders and pay them off, whether it's a donation to their non-profit or envelopes of cash to encourage them to lead their followers to some other controversy.

          My guess is they already paid off the most le

          • One pretty obvious group of moneymakers are the virtue-signaling Hollywood stars now showing up at the protest site. They never met a tweetstorm they didn’t want to jump in front of.

          • since when is religion A "PC concern"? PC isn't just "I don't like it". Without the religious angle this wouldn't be going anywhere.
            • Non-Christian religious "concerns" is the biggest bullshit PC angle ever, and stone-age indigenous "religions" are the worst sack of PC nonsense.

              It boggles the mind how the left, with all of its scientific consensus on climate change, outrage at the Catholic church over everything from abortion to birth control and sexual abuse, suddenly finds itself so enthralled with indigenous religions.

              I'm just *real sure* the scientific consensus on animal spirits and drum circles is that it's absolute fiction, on par

        • I'm not a PR expert, but if they consulted with some native groups, shouldn't it be easy to go on camera with those community leaders and collectively say "everything is cool"? I realize that there may not be a strict hierarchy compared to, say, getting the Pope to tell some Catholics that some project or another is officially sanctioned by the Church, but it seems like it'd be easy to make a media event where pertinent religious leaders, the mayor and the governor go break ground and call it a day.
          • I'm not a PR expert, but if they consulted with some native groups, shouldn't it be easy to go on camera with those community leaders and collectively say "everything is cool"? I realize that there may not be a strict hierarchy compared to, say, getting the Pope to tell some Catholics that some project or another is officially sanctioned by the Church, but it seems like it'd be easy to make a media event where pertinent religious leaders, the mayor and the governor go break ground and call it a day.

            Sounds good, but that doesn't address the racial supremacists and secessionists concerns. They want Hawaiian rule, and a separate country. They do not like the groups they identify as "Japanese" and "White". The haole, which is apparently their "N-Word" equivalent.

            The religion business is just a facade of their motivations.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You freaks put pineapple on pizza. I shit on your sacred mountain.

        • Actually, a Greek immigrant to Canada started pineapple being put on pizza.

          This Hawaiian misconception is right up there with thinking that fortune cookies were invented by the Chinese. When in fact they were an American invention.

          • This Hawaiian misconception is right up there with thinking that fortune cookies were invented by the Chinese. When in fact they were an American invention.

            Japanese-American. Makoto Hagiwara was born in Japan and emigrated to the United States in 1879, where he started producing the first recognizable modern fortune cookie for the Japanese Tea Garden at Golden Gate Park. It appears he based it on tsujiura senbei, but had to modify the recipe because sesame and miso weren't available in sufficient quantities in San Francisco in the late 1800s. Nobody knows for sure because no one asked him before he died in 1925.

            The origin of pineapple pizza is considerably

          • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            Actually, a Greek immigrant to Canada started pineapple being put on pizza.

            This Hawaiian misconception is right up there with thinking that fortune cookies were invented by the Chinese. When in fact they were an American invention.

            And the Hawaiian pizza was named because he needed a name for his pineapple topped pizza. Since you could only get pineapples from Hawaii at the time, it made sense.

            I suppose you could call it a pineapple pizza, but then people would assume it's just pineapple and cheese, like a

      • To say it is just mostly extremists" is disingenuous, if not insulting. The circumstances are complex, but largely focus on the failure of the University of Hawaii to be proper stewards of the space.

        "Complex"? I see no complexity here. I see a bunch of people who for whatever reason don't want the telescope built and who are pretending they have some sort of active religious claim over the land.

        Claims that the land is somehow sacred to these people strikes me as ridiculous. I'm willing to grant them reasonable time to state their claims and objections. Given that the land is owned by the government and that they have no active use of it for any religious purpose and that there is a compelling publi

      • Steve,

        I live in Hawaii, you do not.

        To say it is just mostly extremists" is disingenuous, if not insulting. The circumstances are complex, but largely focus on the failure of the University of Hawaii to be proper stewards of the space.

        If I owned a big hill, I'd consider building a big telescope on it to be excellent hill-stewardry.

        There's is nothing sacred. There's is no mysterious spirit that makes one hill more sacred than another. People claiming so are trying to use these false notions as a means to acquire some power over others. I doesn't matter than it's a power to block science. Any power will do for them.

  • by Jarwulf ( 530523 ) on Friday August 02, 2019 @02:16AM (#59027224)
    that this land was significantly more revered than any other plot of land by the Hawaiians? Or is this just the moaners coming out of the woodwork by reflex? Pretty much any land has some people buried in it or is special to someone if you loosen the definition enough.
    • by gbooch ( 323588 )

      Yes.

      See https://sacredmaunakea.wordpre... [wordpress.com]

      • No. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Cyberax ( 705495 ) on Friday August 02, 2019 @02:32AM (#59027278)
        No. There are no artifacts at the top of the mountain, no burials, no sacred constructions. The only use the natives had of this mountain was to quarry stone.
        • Your assertion is demonstrably false, and illustrates that you know nothing about native Hawaiian culture.

          • Re: No. (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Cyberax ( 705495 ) on Friday August 02, 2019 @02:52AM (#59027326)
            Yes, and exactly how am I wrong? Can you provide links to any sacred artifacts found on the top of Mauna Kea?

            Yeah, thought so.
          • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

            Basically freedom of religion requires that churches ie places of worship not be defiled. All they have to do is prove that the mountain was a historical place of worship, effectively a church and the US government is required to respect that, it is just the way it is, constitutionally speaking. A constitutional challenge in court should be mounted and proof provided and that should be the end of it.

            I know nothing about Hawaiin culture but do have a grasp of the law. As it is written, so it must be done. N

            • All they have to do is prove that the mountain was a historical place of worship,

              Mauna Kea is the world's biggest mountain. It encompasses thousands of square miles.

              There is plenty of room for both telescopes and churches.

              • A question I have always had: why isn't the Tibetan plateau included in the alternative sites list? There are astronomically qualified sites at 5000m there, some with telescopes already in place. China is a partner in TMT, and won’t screw around for years getting it built. When China wants to build something, it just gets done.

                Spain is to be congratulated for offering La Palma as a site, but it’s optically not nearly as good as Maunakea. And because it’s an EU nation, the Luddites will imm

                • A question I have always had: why isn't the Tibetan plateau included in the alternative sites list?

                  Because the Chinese occupation of Tibet is a sticky situation the rest of the world's governments want no part of.

                  China is a partner in TMT...

                  Which only exacerbates the problem. China building things in Tibet, especially big expensive things, is not something any outside party wants a piece of. A handful of randos moaning silly bullshit about a volcano in Hawaii they've ignored for hundreds of years are considerably easier to deal with than the shitstorm that would erupt over Tibet.

                  • And unlike in the US or the EU, if China wanted to build in Tibet, there’s not a goddamn thing the flat-earth lobby could do about it. China would grind demonstrators under its tank treads.

                    But what makes you think that Tibetans object to telescopes? China is already building observatories on the plateau, so we know that optically it’s a good place. If there are native objections, Hollywood would have trumpeted them by now.

            • Basically freedom of religion requires that churches ie places of worship not be defiled.

              No it doesn't. Churches are no different than any other sort of building. You can't vandalize my house or build on property I own without my permission same as a church. The top of Mauna Kea is not in any way a church. It is a bit of government owned land. It is not owned by any religious group with a legitimate claim to the land. There is no such thing as "freedom of religion" in the Constitution. The Constitution prohibits establishment of religion [wikipedia.org] and protects the free exercise of religion [wikipedia.org], neithe

        • No. There are no artifacts at the top of the mountain, no burials, no sacred constructions. The only use the natives had of this mountain was to quarry stone.

          More properly, respect for all known cultural sites was built into the five-year permitting process that they made the TMT go through twice.

      • What could be more sacred than a telescope? Peering out into the great beyond and learning about our universe and origins.

    • that this land was significantly more revered than any other plot of land by the Hawaiians?

      The religious importance of the site is a red herring. This is not a religious question but a political one. This really has less to do about the actual historical significance of the land and more broadly about the symbolism of ANY construction project on it led by a non-native organization. For the protestors, this is a high profile construction project where they can easily draw the attention of the international media to air their grievances and rally their base and allies amongst other Polynesians and

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Any idiot can declare anything "sacred". I could declare the protesters homes sacred, and demand they don't change anything. In fact, that's a pretty good idea. We'll have a little sacredness war, with groups of people declaring others peoples shit sacred. Pretty soon nobody will be able to do anything!

      Governor of Hawaii demands end to Sacredness War. The governor of Hawaii, amid widespread sacredness declarations of everything has called for a end to the war. "My god.. my toothbrush was declared sac

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 02, 2019 @02:20AM (#59027236)

    Don't capitulate to this crap.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    This sad saga shows once again the extremely low pecking order of science in society : had it been a mine or a stadium, we would have hardly heard of the protestora.

  • by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Friday August 02, 2019 @03:02AM (#59027352)
    This seems to be the go-to excuse for indigenous people who simply don't want something built near them. It's their version of NIMBYism.
  • They both own the damn islands and usually don't care much about what other people think anyway.
  • A premium place to host a science endeavor that could benefit mankind. We come from Stardust, fair chance the sacred ones would approve. It is not a hotel or mine.
  • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Friday August 02, 2019 @08:04AM (#59028060)

    In a move intended to de-escalate a standoff between scientists and native Hawaiians blocking the construction of a massive telescope on a mountaintop they believe to be sacred land

    "Sacred land"? What a load of bullshit. There is no such thing as sacred land that we can objectively agree on. There is only land and we have to decide what we think the most valuable use for it might be. Someone else's sentimental attachments (religious or otherwise) are not usually the most important consideration. Sometimes the best use for a bit of land is to just leave it alone but only when based in objective facts. Just because someone claims a bit of land is sacred to them isn't an objective reality we can agree on. I don't really care what anyone thinks of as sacred if it gets in the way of something more useful to humanity in general (like science research), particularly if it involves a scarce resource. If a bit of land nobody cares about is "sacred" then fine. If the land has objectively better uses that benefit all of mankind then piss off.

    There are a limited number of good places to put big telescopes. For anyone to convince me that some bit of land is better used for their prayer meetings than to learn about the universe they'll have a LOT of convincing to do. I don't give a shit what their religious beliefs are as long as they keep them to themselves and don't interfere with the progress of society. Idiots arguing over "sacred ground" is how you get situations like the one in Jerusalem where people kill each other over a worthless patch of dirt for generations for stupid reasons.

    • by jythie ( 914043 )
      'Sacred' is about as objective as 'valuable', it is all a matter of who is getting to decide and what they are getting out of it. You treat 'useful for humanity' as something clean and objective, but it is just as subjective as sacred, and these people are saying that their sacred should have higher priority than your value in a region of land that was theirs and an institution has been tasked with managing it in their interest.. not your's.
      • You treat 'useful for humanity' as something clean and objective, but it is just as subjective as sacred, and these people are saying that their sacred should have higher priority than your value in a region of land that was theirs and an institution has been tasked with managing it in their interest.. not your's.

        Only a minority even of natives are saying that.

        We have to be intelligent and responsible. We have to protect the environment, not for mystical reasons, but for practical ones. And the project takes that into account. We must not permit superstition to retard science. It may be useful to slow the rate of progress in certain cases, but this is not one of them. The real issues are over things like overdevelopment of touristry facilities. Those are what are doing ecological damage. This is a bullshit distracti

      • 'Sacred' is about as objective as 'valuable', it is all a matter of who is getting to decide and what they are getting out of it.

        Nonsense. The value of this telescope is easy for independent parties to objectively agree upon. Knowledge gained, jobs provided, etc. Saying something is "sacred" is a subjective thing that two people cannot have a meeting of the minds about. There is no objective anything we can share or even identify. "Sacred" is only within the head of the person claiming it. Now if they want to preserve it for it's aesthetic beauty or ecological value or objective heritage similar hard to pin down but still objec

    • This was never a question of how sacred the land is; this has always been a political question. The Hawaiian sovereign movement saw this as an easy opportunity to advance their political agenda. The international telescope is a high visibility project that enables them to grab international headlines which simultaneously rallies their base, draws awareness to their cause, mobilizes their allies, and humiliates the Federal and Hawaiian state governments. Its being built in a picturesque location that's easy
  • IIRC last year they had gotten all permission and acceptance to build the telescope after paying off a bunch of the groups and their leaders. So what happened that the groups are back again?
    • So what happened that the groups are back again?

      Either it's different groups, who didn't get the pay-off they were hoping for, or members of the same groups who wanted a bigger pay-off, personally, of for the group.

      Cynical? Moi?

  • This Hawaiian anti-astronomy movement is a carbon copy of the Mt. Graham controversy that was fought in Arizona in the 1990s. Because we’re a Republican state with guns, we were able to run the protesters off and the telescopes got built. In Democrat-infested Hawaii, the state government gives every small group of protesters the run of the place. That’s why Hawaii can’t even have something as uncontroversial as a little boat ferrying people between islands.

    In Arizona the Luddites used a fa

    • Because weâ(TM)re a Republican state with guns, we were able to run the protesters off and the telescopes got built.

      These Arizona gunmen who attacked the Mt Graham protestors - when are they due to get out of jail, or did they just get summarily executed?

      I must have missed the news reports, court reports, eBay auctions of bits of "genuine execution rope" etc.

  • I thought the ancient Hawaiians loved astronomy and learning about whats out there in the universe. Who the F are this nutty protesters?? Anyway, one thing is sure, if they found oil on that there mountain you can bet your bottom dollar somebody will find a way to put a bunch of oil rigs on that supposedly sacred oil field.

  • Marshall McLuhan: I heard what you were saying. You know nothing of my work. You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • ...native Hawaiians blocking the construction of a massive telescope on a mountaintop they believe to be sacred land

    So, will the land no longer be 'sacred' if there is a telescope somewhere on the land? I don't get what one has to do with the other.

    Oh, and I've seen plenty of 'natives' here in California declare land after land 'sacred... right before they build a casino and hotel on it.

    It's all a farce.

Wherever you go...There you are. - Buckaroo Banzai

Working...