June 6, 2025 • 49 mins
Panganga Pungowiyi, an Indigenous mother and climate geoengineering organizer from Sibokuk in the Dena'ina Islands, shares her community's historical trauma and resistance against experimental climate technologies deployed without consent. Her powerful testimony reveals how colonial patterns of exploitation continue today through geoengineering experiments that ignore Indigenous sovereignty and knowledge systems.
• Military contamination during the Cold War left lasting environmental damage and health impacts including cancer and Parkinson's disease
• Climate geoengineering experiments are being conducted in Indigenous territories without free, prior and informed consent
• Researchers spread silica beads on Arctic ice
• Carbon capture technologies primarily benefit fossil fuel companies through enhanced oil recovery rather than addressing climate change
• Indigenous cosmovision views humans as part of nature, not above it, making ecosystem manipulation fundamentally problematic
• Outside researchers fail to understand Arctic ecosystems, where ice movement and marine life cycles would be disrupted by interventions
• True climate solutions require addressing oppression and restoring Indigenous rights rather than technological quick-fixes
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steve Taylor (00:00):
Welcome to Breaking Green, a podcast by
Global Justice Ecology Project.
On Breaking Green, we will talkwith activists and experts to
examine the intertwined issuesof social, ecological and
economic injustice.
We will also explore some ofthe more outrageous proposals to
address climate andenvironmental crises that are
(00:22):
falsely being sold as green.
I am your host, steve Taylor.
Throughout United Stateshistory, indigenous and minority
populations have beenexperimented on without informed
or prior consent.
Now, the threat of globalclimate change and the proposal
for false solutions presents arepeat of history, and the
(00:43):
Proposal for False Solutionspresents a repeat of history.
In this episode of BreakingGreen, we will talk with
Panganga Pangoui, an indigenousmother from Sibokuk, located in
the Dena'ina Islands inso-called Anchorage, alaska.
Panganga has been involved inmany grassroots efforts seeking
justice for indigenous peoples,including efforts to protect
(01:06):
lands and water from extractiveindustry.
Social justice and healing arerecurrent themes within
Panganga's personal andprofessional life.
Panganga has spent many yearsdeveloping and hosting communal
healing spaces for historicaltrauma and, most recently,
training as a tribal healer inthe so-called Bering Strait
region.
And most recently training as atribal healer in the so-called
Bering Strait region.
Panganga currently serves asthe climate geoengineering
(01:29):
organizer for the IndigenousEnvironmental Network Panganga.
Welcome to Breaking Green, hithanks.
So thank you so much forjoining us on Breaking Green.
Joining us on Breaking Green.
I've been reading about yourwork and your contributions in
(01:50):
the field of geoengineering andcriticizing and analyzing what's
going on with that, but couldyou tell us a little bit about
yourself, your heritage and whatbrings you to this?
Panganga Pungowiyi (02:09):
Sure, so I'm a person who is a person who
Lawrence Island, or what wecall Sipuokok, and we call
ourselves the Sipuokok Hipikpeople.
That's the name of our islandand then that's also the name of
one of the original villagesthat is still standing.
We actually used to have, youknow, around 20 communities on
(02:35):
the island.
Up to like 14,000 to 20,000people were on the island, where
, on the island, one communityhad about 4,000 people, which is
equivalent to the population inNome.
And through history we've facedwaves of colonization and other
(03:04):
challenges associated withcolonization that have depleted
our population.
So out of those 20, estimated20 villages, just one was
remaining and that's Sivuruk, orGamble, and then the sister
community on the island, nowSivunga that's where I'm from or
Sivunguk, and that was actuallycreated a little over 100 years
(03:25):
ago through the introduction ofreindeer from Sheldon Jackson.
This was after.
So I'll talk a little bit aboutthe challenges, if that's okay.
Sure, I would love to.
Sailors came from Europe.
They were looking for, you know, the oil that was used for
perfume and fuel, and they werelooking for the baleen, which
(03:49):
was used in, like writing cropsand corsets, those big hoops
that you think about in the1800s in people's skirts.
So they came and theycompletely decimated our marine
mammal population.
And around the same timeKrakatoa erupted and it caused a
(04:12):
plume that was so great that itcaused two years of straight
winter in Alaska.
The decimation of the whalepopulation and the collapse of
(04:33):
the marine ecosystem, coupledwith that volcanic eruption,
caused mass starvation on ourisland.
So that, and then what isreferred to as the great deaths,
you know the introduction ofchildhood diseases, or what we
refer to as childhood diseasesmeasles, mumps.
My great grandmother, who I'mnamed after, she cared for
people who were suffering fromGerman measles and she continued
(04:56):
caring for people and thenbecame sick herself and lost her
eyesight, and so through thosechallenges we lost about 99% of
our population.
And we have relations over inSiberia, or what's called
Siberia, who are of the sameculture, we have the same
(05:21):
language, so some of ourrelations from over there came
and helped repopulate the island.
They were also suffering famineover there as well, but our
island was known for itsabundance and its great health,
and so they came and helpedrestore some of our population,
(05:44):
and so we were recovering fromthat.
And then the Cold War came andof course we have direct
relatives over in Siberia andthose relationships were
strained or like difficult tomaintain during that time,
during that time, and it was atthis time where they built two
(06:07):
defense sites on our island, oneat the northeast cape of our
island and one near Sivokok, oneof the original villages.
And they built those basesunder the agreement that they
would not pollute the SuquiRiver.
And the Suqui River onNortheast Cape was known for its
(06:30):
abundance of seals, which arevery important to being able to
maintain our health and ourwell-being, and it was full of
fish, full of dolly vardens andother species of fish.
That drew hundreds thousands ofseals, is what I hear.
(06:51):
But they polluted that river,so of course the seals are gone,
and then the fish were alsowiped out.
And then, when it was time forthe military to leave, they
didn't want the base usable, andso the soldiers were instructed
(07:12):
to take their back heavy metals, solvents, the types of
pesticides that they used.
They spilled everything out onthe land intentionally before
(07:36):
they left, and they did the sameover in Gamble, except over in
Gamble or Sivokov.
They buried the contaminantswhere the community is built,
and so there are homes built onthose contaminated sites, the
school is built on thecontaminated site and the health
(07:57):
problems you know, like the,it's like not a question of if
you're going to get cancer.
It's when my grandfather wasdiagnosed with Parkinson's in
his 40s and it's like there wasa community out at Northeast
Cape as well, and that communityis displaced.
(08:17):
Of course, we have homes inSavunga and Gamble, but there
were a lot of families who hadbuilt their homes up there as
well, and a lot of people wantto go home, they want to go back
to, you know, where we werethriving.
And then you know, thismilitary era also brought a wave
(08:43):
of experimentation.
And then, you know, thismilitary era also brought a wave
of experimentation.
So there were in Alaska, therewere radioactive iodine
injections in our peoples.
And if you look, there's thiswonderful poem by an artist
named Joan Cain.
It's called Headline News andshe simply took a compilation of
(09:04):
news headlines related tonative peoples, um, so it kind
of showcased the attitude towardus, uh, very dehumanizing.
Um, we were not viewed aspeople, and so I imagine that's
why they felt like injecting uswas uh, they felt like injecting
(09:30):
us was, uh, we've been used asthe dumping grounds and the
stepping stool for, um,non-indigenous community and for
, like Western science, fordecades, for generations, um and
so like, that's uh, and I don'twant to.
You know, we're very resilientpeoples.
Um, we adapt, just in the sameway our ecosystems adapt.
(09:51):
Um, we've managed to maintainour language, our culture, um,
our subsistence lifestyle in theface of all those challenges
that have been posed to us overa period of, you know, hundreds
of years.
But that's the rich history youknow, even prior to that, the
(10:17):
founding values of our culture,that's what I carry with me into
the work that we're going totalk about today.
Steve Taylor (10:23):
You know, that's just horrible.
I'm sure it was withoutinformed consent.
The injection of radioactiveiodine.
Why were they doing that?
I mean, obviously it was somesort of experiment, but what
were they telling people?
Panganga Pungowiyi (10:42):
Yeah, we hosted a great number of
community gatherings in ourregion talking about our history
because we wanted to addresshistorical trauma.
I was working in a wellnessprogram at the time.
I was running a department thatwas getting grant money to
(11:06):
address things like suicide,substance abuse, domestic
violence and through ourcommunity conversations we
figured out that those thingswere just symptoms and we were
getting into those roots ofcolonization, historic trauma,
institutional oppression.
And through community healingdiscussions elders were sharing
(11:38):
with us different stories andone elder was sharing with us
that in his community One elderwas sharing with us that in his
community the children were toldthat they were going to be a
part of the space program andthat they were going to go to
the moon.
They were not.
Their parents were not informed.
Steve Taylor (12:14):
And it was the children who were people as
bodies being sacrifice zonessacrifice zones.
Panganga Pungowiyi (12:29):
Yes, there's a parallel between how
our lands are treated and howour bodies are treated, and
there's a direct connectionbetween the health of our bodies
and the health of ourcommunities.
So that's reflected so manytimes throughout history.
So if you look back at when Iwas talking about how, when they
decimated the whale population,our population is dependent on
the whale population and howwell the whales are doing so,
(12:51):
when the whales were wiped out,so were we, and so when you do
things like intentionally spillheavy metals, solvents, fuel on
our lands Of course we're sodirectly related to our lands
our bodies become contaminatedjust the same.
(13:13):
So we've approached the EPA,the military, a number of times
over a period of years, and Iwant to give a shout out to
Annie Aloa, who was a healthaide on our island.
She was a tribal healer, ahealth aide, and she noticed the
(13:35):
low birth weight symptom in ourpopulation and she noticed the
rate of cancer increasing, therate of cancer increasing, and
she tried to sound the alarmmany times and was dismissed
many, many times.
Um, and the EPA and other folkshave done quote, unquote studies
(13:57):
, um, and try to say things likeour diet and like cigarette
smoking are the cause of ourhealth issues.
But this organization calledACAT, the Alaska Community
Action on Toxics, have donestudies and have found that the
(14:21):
same health issues that we'reseeing in our community members
are also seen in the fish thatare coming back to the Suqayt
River.
And so there's an undeniablelink between what happened at
Northeast Cape and the othersite and what is happening to
our bodies.
And so when I say we aresacrifice zones, we recognize,
(14:46):
we have recognized, you know,the act of colonization, the act
of harming our lands for thegain of resources, what Western
world views as resources.
They're sacrificing the healthof that land, and so those are
deemed as sacrifice zones.
And in the same way, our bodiesare also being used as
(15:08):
sacrifice zones in thoseexperimentations and then, and
also in extractive industry aswell.
Steve Taylor (15:15):
You've been very concerned and very active
regarding geoengineering,climate geoengineering and how
experiments may be done orproposed in your territory.
Could you tell us a bit aboutthat in general terms, what
(15:37):
geoengineering is and how it mayimpact your community currently
or in the near future?
Panganga Pungowiyi (15:45):
Sure.
So geoengineering is atheoretical technology or set of
technologies that are meant toaddress the symptoms of climate
change.
These are meant to addressthings like the temperature
(16:07):
rising or the ice melting, allthe symptoms that we see of
climate change.
Now, climate change is theover-emission of pollutants.
It's, you know, that's how weare changing the climate.
And then the symptoms are allof these ecosystem responses.
(16:33):
You know the way that theecosystem is responding to the
changes that are happening therelease of fossil fuels into the
atmosphere, fuels into theatmosphere.
So geoengineering is typicallydivided into two categories.
Sometimes there are othersubsets of categories, but
(16:53):
essentially carbon dioxideremoval in general terms.
And then the other one is solarradiation, and sometimes they
change it solar radiation, andsometimes they change it solar
radiation mitigation, solarradiation management, solar
radiation modification, solarradiation manipulation, but
usually SRM is the um, it's whatthey call it.
(17:18):
And sometimes you'll see subsetcategories like marine
geoengineering, which is acombination of those two things
but done in the marineenvironment, or Arctic ice
management, which usually issolar radiation related, and the
(17:40):
solar radiation is managing theamount of sunlight that reaches
the Earth's surface or changingit so it's reflected back into
space essentially.
So it's treating the sun likethis, treating it like the sun,
is the problem.
Um, but there there thesetheoretical technologies, and I
(18:04):
say theoretical because none ofthem have been done at scale.
Um and that's something thatfolks need to keep in mind is
the end goal is to always dothese at scale, and at scale is
ecosystem wide.
You know, these are not umtechnologies that are meant to
(18:26):
be deployed in limited regions.
They're they're meant to impactentire ecosystems.
Um so like.
Uh, the one that's beenimplemented the most is carbon
dioxide removal, I'd say,through things like CCS carbon
(18:46):
capture and storage or CCUScarbon capture, utilization and
storage are developed and pushedby industry so extractive
industry, billionaires, largepolluters in order to claim that
(19:12):
they're doing something toaddress climate change.
And it does a lot of differentthings.
It helps people feel more atease as though something is
being done or something is beingdeveloped to address what we
can see as the impending doom ofclimate change, really climate
(19:38):
chaos.
And then it helps those who arefunding and pushing these
technologies to escapeaccountability, so they get to
say that they're doing somethingabout all of the pollution and
destruction.
Steve Taylor (19:55):
So what are your major criticisms or what are the
dangers you see with carboncapture?
Panganga Pungowiyi (20:03):
And the techniques used to carry out
these experiments.
The techniques used to get,quote, unquote, community buy-in
, if there is any, and then theimpacts are so strikingly
(20:38):
similar to those used byextractive industry.
It's like there's a playbook onthese sorts of things, and so
things like promising income,promising economic stimulation
(20:59):
in communities that are veryeconomically suppressed, right.
So if you buy a frozen steak inmy community, it's $50.
Right, a gallon of orange juiceis like $20.
Gallon of milk is like $20.
These are communities that thecost of living is very, very
(21:22):
high and the unemployment rateis also very high.
So it's over 75 percentunemployment.
And no bank is ever going toinvest in our communities.
You know, these are communities.
The nature of colonization isto try to get the indigenous
peoples to move away, sostarving us out economically is
obviously one technique.
(21:43):
So then companies can come inand they can be, you know, the
saviors or the promisers ofeconomic growth or opportunity,
which is appealing to somepeople if they're not thinking
(22:05):
about how our health andwell-being is tied to the lands
themselves.
So things will be like thejurisdiction who has
jurisdiction over our lands,over our waters, over our air
and the loopholes that can beformed in places like Alaska.
(22:27):
Those are some ways that folkstry to get away with
experimenting without ourknowledge or consent.
Experimenting without ourknowledge or consent and that's
the bottom line is really theissue is about Indigenous rights
, indigenous sovereignty andfree, prior and informed consent
when it comes to thingshappening on our lands that will
(22:50):
impact us.
So, rather than looking usuallyat individual technologies and
the pros and cons of thosetechnologies, I usually like to
start out with the biggerpicture stuff, because the same
issues that you see in miningand oil production.
(23:17):
What happens is so if you goback in history, there was a
military tactic to rape andmurder indigenous women,
indigenous femmes and two-spiritpeople.
It was a tactic forcolonization and that tactic has
been passed down and the wholepurpose of colonization is
(23:38):
resource extraction, and so thatpractice has been passed down
through generations as theycontinue to extract from our
lands, and that continues withgeoengineering, because in order
to develop large-scaletechnologies like carbon capture
, you have to have things likeman camps and those are
(24:00):
transplants people who don'tbelong in the community, who are
non-native, who live on or nearour lands in temporary housing.
I've seen communities built outof connexes housing men who
come from outside of thecommunity into communities where
, historically, if there hasbeen violence, whether it's
(24:22):
sexual or physical, againstindigenous women, there is a
high rate of violence and a lowrate of prosecution.
And so you mix those twotogether.
You know, with men who comefrom the outside who recognize
if I harm these people, I canget away with it much more
(24:42):
easily.
So that happens in extractiveindustry, and that this also
happens with the development ofany technology or infrastructure
on our lands that don't belongto us, I guess the
infrastructure that is coming infrom the outside.
So those are like the biggerpicture issues that I have.
(25:08):
And then also our cosmovision,our original instructions and
our value system never puts usabove nature.
In fact, we're just a part ofnature, we are nature, and the
(25:29):
notion that we can manipulatenature and that we can change
nature goes against the verybelief structure that we've held
for since time immemorial andum to have technologies, whether
(25:51):
or not they're experimented onon our lands or near our lands.
If they're implemented, they'regoing to impact our ecosystems
and therefore go against ourbelief structure, our
cosmovision, if that makes sense.
Steve Taylor (26:10):
When did the geoengineering start to become
an issue in your community andwhat is pushing them there?
I mean, why?
What's causing this and why dothey?
I mean, I think you know, wecan probably guess that there's,
(26:31):
you know, some of the answer tothat, but what's bringing this
about and how long has it beengoing on?
Where are we?
What does it look like now?
Panganga Pungowiyi (26:40):
Yeah, so when I was pulled in, there was
a particular experimenthappening in Utqiagvik.
So the technology or theory isthat if you spread silica hollow
glass microspheres, thesesilica hollow glass microspheres
, so these tiny, tiny about thewidth reflective, and it will
(27:02):
thicken the ice over time.
So that's the theory.
(27:32):
The incentive of these sorts ofprojects is that they bring in
carbon offsets or sometimescarbon credits.
There's that whole carbonmarket system which helps large
polluters escape accountability.
Essentially, they can say thatthey've done something to
address X amount of you knowthis many tons of carbon or like
reverse the effects of climatechange this much and therefore
(27:57):
are less accountable to thedamage that they've done in a
different, quote-unquote,different part of the earth.
Um, so this team came up toalaska and started experimenting
on a lake outside of utqiagvik.
(28:17):
They had already experimentedin Minnesota and in California
and their next phase was to goup to the Arctic.
So they went up to the Arcticand they were spreading football
fields worth of this material.
And in our communities we knowthat silica is quite harmful.
(28:37):
A lot of our gravel is made upof silica or has a lot of silica
, and we have high rates oftuberculosis and we have high
rates of rheumatoid arthritisand kidney disease.
And silica is linked to allthree of those things.
Is linked to all three of thosethings.
(28:59):
So the idea of spreadingconcentrated amounts in the
Arctic in order to thicken theice and, by their own admission,
snow actually reflects morethan the silica beads do, more
than the silica beads do but toput tons and tons, millions of
(29:25):
tons of this into our ecosystemannually was the idea.
They wanted to spread between$1 and $5 billion worth of the
material annually on the ice.
That was the goal.
Because, remember when I saidat scale, we always have to
(29:45):
think about these things atscale and we had approached them
multiple times.
Native Movement had spoken tothem that's one organization in
Alaska when they were talkingabout moving their materials to
Nome and experimenting outsideof Nome because, quote unquote,
(30:08):
there was no whaling in Nome,and I think that's the other
aspect of this is, um, these arefolks who are removed from our
communities, they're not part ofour communities, not consulting
our communities and not knowingour communities, and then
saying that they're going to goand do the experiments in Nome
(30:28):
because there's no whaling.
Well, there is whaling in Nome.
They didn't know that becausethey didn't talk to anybody.
Steve Taylor (30:34):
A lot of times we think of glass beads.
It's inert, it sits there right.
Okay, so they're glass beads, Imean no, they claimed it was
non-toxic.
Panganga Pungowiyi (31:01):
But the company later shut down their
experiments or their projectaltogether because of the
potential for ecotoxology.
Steve Taylor (31:13):
Did they conduct any experiments, or was it all
just proposed?
Panganga Pungowiyi (31:18):
Did they conduct any experiments or was
it all just proposed?
No, they were spreading thematerials on a lake outside of
Utqalvik without the free, priorand informed consent of the
tribes.
So they did not speak to thetribes, they did not talk to the
community.
They went through onefor-profit organization to do
that.
To do that it was notresponsible at all and they
(31:41):
didn't consult any of the tribalgovernments and they actually
weren't informing anybody ofwhat they were doing or why.
But they did partner with theuniversity, the local university
, and used Indigenous kids whowere going to that university to
spread the materials, which isa whole other issue.
Steve Taylor (32:08):
Did you ever approach any government agency
or state government about thatby chance?
Panganga Pungowiyi (32:14):
So a lot of these experiments are so
foreign and so new that theyaren't categorized under the
regulations.
Steve Taylor (32:25):
Viewing the Arctic environment as one thing, one
thing alone reflectivity and ice.
The idea that we're going topreserve the glacier.
Panganga Pungowiyi (33:00):
But that stands in quite a contrast to
how it's viewed by people whohave lived there for thousands
of years.
And to not include people withthe intimate relationship to the
land and the water and the ice,to not include us in the
conversations when oneidentifying the problem and two
identifying the solution to theproblem, that's dangerous.
It's not just disrespectful andit's not just going against our
sovereign rights.
It's not just disrespectful andit's not just going against our
(33:20):
sovereign rights, it's alsojust dangerous and, frankly,
stupid.
Steve Taylor (33:27):
Because, as you said, these are experiments but
if they think, actually be ableto predict what's going to
happen at scale.
Panganga Pungowiyi (33:50):
Yeah, I mean, if you're doing, quote
unquote, small scale testing andthen you implement,
implementation is also testingbecause, like you, just you
can't know what's going tohappen.
And and we've seen experimentsyou know happen in the past that
um were well-intentioned, youknow, things like um, like
(34:20):
decreasing the amount ofdiseased mosquitoes by only
allowing males to survive, orlike trying to breed them out,
and then it just ends up havinga completely different effect
than was originally intended,anticipated.
(34:47):
So nature, just like weactually did some community
research, community-basedresearch, collecting qualitative
data from indigenous communitymembers in Alaska, without
(35:07):
tainting the data or otherwiseshowing bias around
geoengineering.
So we presented the idea ofgeoengineering.
You know, shared directly fromwebsites, what the intention of
these projects were.
(35:45):
Um, and you know the, theresponses that we got about how
you cannot, you cannot overpowernature, like she's always going
to, she's always going to punchback or she's going to it's,
it's never going to be what youexpect.
And there was lots of, a lot ofwarnings and a lot of wisdom
that had been passed down frompeople's you know, grandparents
and great-grandparents aboutwarning against doing these
sorts of things.
Steve Taylor (36:04):
Well, it's very interesting.
I mean when you were describingthe potential unintended
consequences.
It's just I realize how much Idon't know about ice.
You know, as a person whodoesn't live in that environment
, you know I don't have thatknowledge and I don't think
(36:25):
culturally you's.
There really is a lot ofunderstanding.
Panganga Pungowiyi (36:31):
Yeah, I mean there's like there was
another experiment that wasactually done in Nome.
Their idea is to have thesewater pumps that sit on top of
the ice and suck water fromunderneath and spill it over the
top to thicken it.
(36:53):
The idea is to have thempowered by green hydrogen
batteries, and if you look atscientific articles and
scientific journals, it showsthat you would need to cover
(37:14):
about 10% of the ice with such apump in order to have any
impact at all.
Um and then like of course, theimpact is not going to be what
you think it's going to be.
One is not going to be what youthink it's going to be One.
Our ice is not static.
It moves around, it flips.
(37:42):
Our ice can be unpredictable,especially now as the climate
continues to change.
It's not a stable place.
So you're going to have pumpsthat are dumped into the ocean
along with the green hydrogenbatteries.
We also use the water from inthe ocean when we're out ice
fishing.
We use those to keep our holesopen.
(38:04):
Because the salinity, thedifference between Because the
salinity, the difference betweenthe salt in the water and then
the process used to freeze theice, there's less saline over
(38:25):
time, and so if you add salt tothat, it actually has an
opposite effect.
It eventually melts it or keepsthat ice open.
And also, um, the blue cod laytheir eggs at the bottom of the
ice, in the algae that grows atthe bottom of the ice, and that
algae needs sunlight to permeatethe ice in order to grow down
(38:49):
there, and the blue cod needthat algae to continue their
life cycle.
And so, like, having a waterpump suck water from underneath
the ice is going to disrupt thatprocess as well.
It's just, there's so manythings that people from the
outside don't.
They just don't know our iceand they don't know our land.
Steve Taylor (39:14):
Wow.
Has anyone tried to inform themof this?
Panganga Pungowiyi (39:19):
Yeah, I mean yes, and there's too much
to inform them of, right?
So they're going to.
A lot of the times what happensis they'll say, well, we'll put
one of you on our advisoryboard or we'll we'll uh ask you,
you know these 30 questions,and it'll be a consult, and the
(39:42):
expectation will be that weshare, like thousands of years
worth of knowledge with them inthose 30 questions.
So it's so, even if we it'slike I'm not, I'm not trying to
be like rude but um, you know,like when you have a kid and
(40:05):
they want to do something, um,but it's like dangerous for them
to do, but they don't have thecapacity to understand right now
why it's dangerous, or it wouldjust take too much explaining,
or like they're just not, theydon't have the capacity to
understand, and so that's whythey need us and I'm not trying
(40:29):
to be paternalistic at all, butwe have intimate relationship
and intimate knowledge about ourecosystems that we can't simply
share in one consult or evenfive consults Like we need to be
there prior to them developingthat theory.
Steve Taylor (40:51):
And there's also the alternative, too, which I
think you've spoken about a lot,which is, like you know, these
indigenous environments andindigenous cultures are
disproportionately impacted byclimate change, and then there's
people coming in from theoutside wanting to do these
things to save our own self, youknow, because we're going to
(41:16):
have to do something, becausebut it's not addressing the
cause, which is us.
Panganga Pungowiyi (41:23):
Right, it's us and it's oppression, and
it's oppression and it's likethe whole root cause of climate
chaos is our ability, our, theimbalance of relationship, you
(41:44):
know, like the, the poorrelationship that we have with
indigenous peoples, and you knowour lands and our, our
relationship with the water andour relationship with the air.
And if there was no if, if ourrights were restored and we were
not permitted to be sacrificezones, if that was not something
(42:04):
that could happen, if humanrights was the thing, um, there
would be no over emission ofpollution, because you wouldn't
be able to harm people, and soclimate change wouldn't be a
thing.
So there's that.
Steve Taylor (42:24):
I was looking in one of your statements too, that
most of the land that isprotected and not that the
indigenous people are notresponsible for the
overproduction of CO2.
(42:45):
That 80 percent of thebiodiversity exists on
indigenous land, but it tends tobe the most impacted.
And now we have these technoautocrats coming in or want to
be techno autocrats, and they'reputting more of the onus on
indigenous communities.
Panganga Pungowiyi (43:06):
Yeah, I mean like even addressing
oppression in.
Like, even if you justaddressed oppression in one area
, it would help, right?
So if you're looking at thingslike university funding, a lot
of these experiments are housedin universities.
The Scopex project with Harvardthat David Keith was running
(43:31):
and it was funded in partthrough Bill Gates it was a
Gates Foundation $1 milliongrant that was given to Harvard
to develop stratospheric aerosolinjection.
Aerosol injection which wasthey tried to experiment on land
(43:57):
over reservation land inArizona and then, when they were
chased out of there, they wentto Sami territory in Sweden and
they tried to experiment on landover there.
But the accountability or thelack of accountability to
universities who get thisfunding and like send people,
permit people to be sent toIndigenous communities where
(44:22):
they don't have anyrelationships.
You know, it would make moresense to grant that funding to
Indigenous communities todevelop those solutions
themselves.
It would solve a lot ofproblems, even if it's not
addressing oppression on alllevels.
Even that one small move wouldmake such a big difference,
(44:45):
putting the power where itbelongs to frontline communities
and to indigenous communities.
Steve Taylor (44:53):
So what about the carbon capture technology?
Panganga Pungowiyi (44:58):
Yeah.
So in Alaska, for instance,I'll talk a little bit about big
picture legislation stuff andthen I'll get into the
technology itself.
But they just passed like acarbon management bill which
would allow for the use ofpublic lands for carbon capture.
(45:19):
Um and so this like often inthe same way that oil pipelines,
infringes on the right ofprivate landowners and also
public lands.
This is the same sort of thing.
They'll use things, they'llfind ways to gain power,
(45:49):
jurisdiction over private andpublic lands and privatize it,
because it's really about money.
So carbon capture, especiallyin the United States, is about
money.
97% of it in the US is used forenhanced oil recovery, where
they flush out nearly depletedoil wells, which is what they're
(46:11):
going to be doing here, becausethey're putting those
facilities near the Cook Inletwhere they had oil production,
and they flush out those oilwells to get the rest of the oil
and to get it quicker.
So they can count the quickprocess as carbon credits and
(46:34):
they count as offsets thecapture of the carbon itself,
which is then quote unquotestored.
But we know that it's reallyused for enhanced oil recovery.
But also there was a carboncapture facility.
(47:15):
Um, one of the pipes burst, thisgreen cloud of gas came down
into a valley where there was acommunity.
Um, people could see the gascoming.
They tried to start theirvehicles to leave, but there
wasn't enough oxygen in the airfor their engines to combust and
so folks were stuck.
(47:37):
The paramedics said that folkswere wandering around in the
dark, foaming at the mouth,confused.
So yeah, I mean it's not greatto have near people.
It's certainly not great for,you know, any wildlife that's in
the area.
They're also going to beimpacted by that, and the amount
(47:57):
of infrastructure that it wouldtake to capture enough carbon.
Even if capturing carbon was aneffective way to address
climate change, which it's notthe amount of land that you
would need there isn't enoughland to use at scale for it to
(48:24):
even make a difference, it costsa lot of money make a
difference.
Steve Taylor (48:39):
It costs a lot of money, it gets large polluters
off the hook and it's not safe.
Well, we're going to have to doanother episode because there's
more to talk about, but thishas been an enlightening episode
and it has been a pleasurespeaking with you.
It's just so much going on inthe Arctic, in your region, than
(49:20):
I had anticipated.
Thank you for joining us onBreaking Green.
Thank you for joining us ondonations by people like you.
Please help us lift up thevoices of those working to
protect forests, defend humanrights and expose false
solutions.
Simply text GIVE to 17162574187.
(49:44):
That's 17162574187.
Welcome to Breaking Green, a podcast by
Global Justice Ecology Project.
On Breaking Green, we will talkwith activists and experts to
examine the intertwined issuesof social, ecological and
economic injustice.
We will also explore some ofthe more outrageous proposals to
address climate andenvironmental crises that are
(00:22):
falsely being sold as green.
I am your host, steve Taylor.
Throughout United Stateshistory, indigenous and minority
populations have beenexperimented on without informed
or prior consent.
Now, the threat of globalclimate change and the proposal
for false solutions presents arepeat of history, and the
(00:43):
Proposal for False Solutionspresents a repeat of history.
In this episode of BreakingGreen, we will talk with
Panganga Pangoui, an indigenousmother from Sibokuk, located in
the Dena'ina Islands inso-called Anchorage, alaska.
Panganga has been involved inmany grassroots efforts seeking
justice for indigenous peoples,including efforts to protect
(01:06):
lands and water from extractiveindustry.
Social justice and healing arerecurrent themes within
Panganga's personal andprofessional life.
Panganga has spent many yearsdeveloping and hosting communal
healing spaces for historicaltrauma and, most recently,
training as a tribal healer inthe so-called Bering Strait
region.
And most recently training as atribal healer in the so-called
Bering Strait region.
Panganga currently serves asthe climate geoengineering
(01:29):
organizer for the IndigenousEnvironmental Network Panganga.
Welcome to Breaking Green, hithanks.
So thank you so much forjoining us on Breaking Green.
Joining us on Breaking Green.
I've been reading about yourwork and your contributions in
(01:50):
the field of geoengineering andcriticizing and analyzing what's
going on with that, but couldyou tell us a little bit about
yourself, your heritage and whatbrings you to this?
Panganga Pungowiyi (02:09):
Sure, so I'm a person who is a person who
Lawrence Island, or what wecall Sipuokok, and we call
ourselves the Sipuokok Hipikpeople.
That's the name of our islandand then that's also the name of
one of the original villagesthat is still standing.
We actually used to have, youknow, around 20 communities on
(02:35):
the island.
Up to like 14,000 to 20,000people were on the island, where
, on the island, one communityhad about 4,000 people, which is
equivalent to the population inNome.
And through history we've facedwaves of colonization and other
(03:04):
challenges associated withcolonization that have depleted
our population.
So out of those 20, estimated20 villages, just one was
remaining and that's Sivuruk, orGamble, and then the sister
community on the island, nowSivunga that's where I'm from or
Sivunguk, and that was actuallycreated a little over 100 years
(03:25):
ago through the introduction ofreindeer from Sheldon Jackson.
This was after.
So I'll talk a little bit aboutthe challenges, if that's okay.
Sure, I would love to.
Sailors came from Europe.
They were looking for, you know, the oil that was used for
perfume and fuel, and they werelooking for the baleen, which
(03:49):
was used in, like writing cropsand corsets, those big hoops
that you think about in the1800s in people's skirts.
So they came and theycompletely decimated our marine
mammal population.
And around the same timeKrakatoa erupted and it caused a
(04:12):
plume that was so great that itcaused two years of straight
winter in Alaska.
The decimation of the whalepopulation and the collapse of
(04:33):
the marine ecosystem, coupledwith that volcanic eruption,
caused mass starvation on ourisland.
So that, and then what isreferred to as the great deaths,
you know the introduction ofchildhood diseases, or what we
refer to as childhood diseasesmeasles, mumps.
My great grandmother, who I'mnamed after, she cared for
people who were suffering fromGerman measles and she continued
(04:56):
caring for people and thenbecame sick herself and lost her
eyesight, and so through thosechallenges we lost about 99% of
our population.
And we have relations over inSiberia, or what's called
Siberia, who are of the sameculture, we have the same
(05:21):
language, so some of ourrelations from over there came
and helped repopulate the island.
They were also suffering famineover there as well, but our
island was known for itsabundance and its great health,
and so they came and helpedrestore some of our population,
(05:44):
and so we were recovering fromthat.
And then the Cold War came andof course we have direct
relatives over in Siberia andthose relationships were
strained or like difficult tomaintain during that time,
during that time, and it was atthis time where they built two
(06:07):
defense sites on our island, oneat the northeast cape of our
island and one near Sivokok, oneof the original villages.
And they built those basesunder the agreement that they
would not pollute the SuquiRiver.
And the Suqui River onNortheast Cape was known for its
(06:30):
abundance of seals, which arevery important to being able to
maintain our health and ourwell-being, and it was full of
fish, full of dolly vardens andother species of fish.
That drew hundreds thousands ofseals, is what I hear.
(06:51):
But they polluted that river,so of course the seals are gone,
and then the fish were alsowiped out.
And then, when it was time forthe military to leave, they
didn't want the base usable, andso the soldiers were instructed
(07:12):
to take their back heavy metals, solvents, the types of
pesticides that they used.
They spilled everything out onthe land intentionally before
(07:36):
they left, and they did the sameover in Gamble, except over in
Gamble or Sivokov.
They buried the contaminantswhere the community is built,
and so there are homes built onthose contaminated sites, the
school is built on thecontaminated site and the health
(07:57):
problems you know, like the,it's like not a question of if
you're going to get cancer.
It's when my grandfather wasdiagnosed with Parkinson's in
his 40s and it's like there wasa community out at Northeast
Cape as well, and that communityis displaced.
(08:17):
Of course, we have homes inSavunga and Gamble, but there
were a lot of families who hadbuilt their homes up there as
well, and a lot of people wantto go home, they want to go back
to, you know, where we werethriving.
And then you know, thismilitary era also brought a wave
(08:43):
of experimentation.
And then, you know, thismilitary era also brought a wave
of experimentation.
So there were in Alaska, therewere radioactive iodine
injections in our peoples.
And if you look, there's thiswonderful poem by an artist
named Joan Cain.
It's called Headline News andshe simply took a compilation of
(09:04):
news headlines related tonative peoples, um, so it kind
of showcased the attitude towardus, uh, very dehumanizing.
Um, we were not viewed aspeople, and so I imagine that's
why they felt like injecting uswas uh, they felt like injecting
(09:30):
us was, uh, we've been used asthe dumping grounds and the
stepping stool for, um,non-indigenous community and for
, like Western science, fordecades, for generations, um and
so like, that's uh, and I don'twant to.
You know, we're very resilientpeoples.
Um, we adapt, just in the sameway our ecosystems adapt.
(09:51):
Um, we've managed to maintainour language, our culture, um,
our subsistence lifestyle in theface of all those challenges
that have been posed to us overa period of, you know, hundreds
of years.
But that's the rich history youknow, even prior to that, the
(10:17):
founding values of our culture,that's what I carry with me into
the work that we're going totalk about today.
Steve Taylor (10:23):
You know, that's just horrible.
I'm sure it was withoutinformed consent.
The injection of radioactiveiodine.
Why were they doing that?
I mean, obviously it was somesort of experiment, but what
were they telling people?
Panganga Pungowiyi (10:42):
Yeah, we hosted a great number of
community gatherings in ourregion talking about our history
because we wanted to addresshistorical trauma.
I was working in a wellnessprogram at the time.
I was running a department thatwas getting grant money to
(11:06):
address things like suicide,substance abuse, domestic
violence and through ourcommunity conversations we
figured out that those thingswere just symptoms and we were
getting into those roots ofcolonization, historic trauma,
institutional oppression.
And through community healingdiscussions elders were sharing
(11:38):
with us different stories andone elder was sharing with us
that in his community One elderwas sharing with us that in his
community the children were toldthat they were going to be a
part of the space program andthat they were going to go to
the moon.
They were not.
Their parents were not informed.
Steve Taylor (12:14):
And it was the children who were people as
bodies being sacrifice zonessacrifice zones.
Panganga Pungowiyi (12:29):
Yes, there's a parallel between how
our lands are treated and howour bodies are treated, and
there's a direct connectionbetween the health of our bodies
and the health of ourcommunities.
So that's reflected so manytimes throughout history.
So if you look back at when Iwas talking about how, when they
decimated the whale population,our population is dependent on
the whale population and howwell the whales are doing so,
(12:51):
when the whales were wiped out,so were we, and so when you do
things like intentionally spillheavy metals, solvents, fuel on
our lands Of course we're sodirectly related to our lands
our bodies become contaminatedjust the same.
(13:13):
So we've approached the EPA,the military, a number of times
over a period of years, and Iwant to give a shout out to
Annie Aloa, who was a healthaide on our island.
She was a tribal healer, ahealth aide, and she noticed the
(13:35):
low birth weight symptom in ourpopulation and she noticed the
rate of cancer increasing, therate of cancer increasing, and
she tried to sound the alarmmany times and was dismissed
many, many times.
Um, and the EPA and other folkshave done quote, unquote studies
(13:57):
, um, and try to say things likeour diet and like cigarette
smoking are the cause of ourhealth issues.
But this organization calledACAT, the Alaska Community
Action on Toxics, have donestudies and have found that the
(14:21):
same health issues that we'reseeing in our community members
are also seen in the fish thatare coming back to the Suqayt
River.
And so there's an undeniablelink between what happened at
Northeast Cape and the othersite and what is happening to
our bodies.
And so when I say we aresacrifice zones, we recognize,
(14:46):
we have recognized, you know,the act of colonization, the act
of harming our lands for thegain of resources, what Western
world views as resources.
They're sacrificing the healthof that land, and so those are
deemed as sacrifice zones.
And in the same way, our bodiesare also being used as
(15:08):
sacrifice zones in thoseexperimentations and then, and
also in extractive industry aswell.
Steve Taylor (15:15):
You've been very concerned and very active
regarding geoengineering,climate geoengineering and how
experiments may be done orproposed in your territory.
Could you tell us a bit aboutthat in general terms, what
(15:37):
geoengineering is and how it mayimpact your community currently
or in the near future?
Panganga Pungowiyi (15:45):
Sure.
So geoengineering is atheoretical technology or set of
technologies that are meant toaddress the symptoms of climate
change.
These are meant to addressthings like the temperature
(16:07):
rising or the ice melting, allthe symptoms that we see of
climate change.
Now, climate change is theover-emission of pollutants.
It's, you know, that's how weare changing the climate.
And then the symptoms are allof these ecosystem responses.
(16:33):
You know the way that theecosystem is responding to the
changes that are happening therelease of fossil fuels into the
atmosphere, fuels into theatmosphere.
So geoengineering is typicallydivided into two categories.
Sometimes there are othersubsets of categories, but
(16:53):
essentially carbon dioxideremoval in general terms.
And then the other one is solarradiation, and sometimes they
change it solar radiation, andsometimes they change it solar
radiation mitigation, solarradiation management, solar
radiation modification, solarradiation manipulation, but
usually SRM is the um, it's whatthey call it.
(17:18):
And sometimes you'll see subsetcategories like marine
geoengineering, which is acombination of those two things
but done in the marineenvironment, or Arctic ice
management, which usually issolar radiation related, and the
(17:40):
solar radiation is managing theamount of sunlight that reaches
the Earth's surface or changingit so it's reflected back into
space essentially.
So it's treating the sun likethis, treating it like the sun,
is the problem.
Um, but there there thesetheoretical technologies, and I
(18:04):
say theoretical because none ofthem have been done at scale.
Um and that's something thatfolks need to keep in mind is
the end goal is to always dothese at scale, and at scale is
ecosystem wide.
You know, these are not umtechnologies that are meant to
(18:26):
be deployed in limited regions.
They're they're meant to impactentire ecosystems.
Um so like.
Uh, the one that's beenimplemented the most is carbon
dioxide removal, I'd say,through things like CCS carbon
(18:46):
capture and storage or CCUScarbon capture, utilization and
storage are developed and pushedby industry so extractive
industry, billionaires, largepolluters in order to claim that
(19:12):
they're doing something toaddress climate change.
And it does a lot of differentthings.
It helps people feel more atease as though something is
being done or something is beingdeveloped to address what we
can see as the impending doom ofclimate change, really climate
(19:38):
chaos.
And then it helps those who arefunding and pushing these
technologies to escapeaccountability, so they get to
say that they're doing somethingabout all of the pollution and
destruction.
Steve Taylor (19:55):
So what are your major criticisms or what are the
dangers you see with carboncapture?
Panganga Pungowiyi (20:03):
And the techniques used to carry out
these experiments.
The techniques used to get,quote, unquote, community buy-in
, if there is any, and then theimpacts are so strikingly
(20:38):
similar to those used byextractive industry.
It's like there's a playbook onthese sorts of things, and so
things like promising income,promising economic stimulation
(20:59):
in communities that are veryeconomically suppressed, right.
So if you buy a frozen steak inmy community, it's $50.
Right, a gallon of orange juiceis like $20.
Gallon of milk is like $20.
These are communities that thecost of living is very, very
(21:22):
high and the unemployment rateis also very high.
So it's over 75 percentunemployment.
And no bank is ever going toinvest in our communities.
You know, these are communities.
The nature of colonization isto try to get the indigenous
peoples to move away, sostarving us out economically is
obviously one technique.
(21:43):
So then companies can come inand they can be, you know, the
saviors or the promisers ofeconomic growth or opportunity,
which is appealing to somepeople if they're not thinking
(22:05):
about how our health andwell-being is tied to the lands
themselves.
So things will be like thejurisdiction who has
jurisdiction over our lands,over our waters, over our air
and the loopholes that can beformed in places like Alaska.
(22:27):
Those are some ways that folkstry to get away with
experimenting without ourknowledge or consent.
Experimenting without ourknowledge or consent and that's
the bottom line is really theissue is about Indigenous rights
, indigenous sovereignty andfree, prior and informed consent
when it comes to thingshappening on our lands that will
(22:50):
impact us.
So, rather than looking usuallyat individual technologies and
the pros and cons of thosetechnologies, I usually like to
start out with the biggerpicture stuff, because the same
issues that you see in miningand oil production.
(23:17):
What happens is so if you goback in history, there was a
military tactic to rape andmurder indigenous women,
indigenous femmes and two-spiritpeople.
It was a tactic forcolonization and that tactic has
been passed down and the wholepurpose of colonization is
(23:38):
resource extraction, and so thatpractice has been passed down
through generations as theycontinue to extract from our
lands, and that continues withgeoengineering, because in order
to develop large-scaletechnologies like carbon capture
, you have to have things likeman camps and those are
(24:00):
transplants people who don'tbelong in the community, who are
non-native, who live on or nearour lands in temporary housing.
I've seen communities built outof connexes housing men who
come from outside of thecommunity into communities where
, historically, if there hasbeen violence, whether it's
(24:22):
sexual or physical, againstindigenous women, there is a
high rate of violence and a lowrate of prosecution.
And so you mix those twotogether.
You know, with men who comefrom the outside who recognize
if I harm these people, I canget away with it much more
(24:42):
easily.
So that happens in extractiveindustry, and that this also
happens with the development ofany technology or infrastructure
on our lands that don't belongto us, I guess the
infrastructure that is coming infrom the outside.
So those are like the biggerpicture issues that I have.
(25:08):
And then also our cosmovision,our original instructions and
our value system never puts usabove nature.
In fact, we're just a part ofnature, we are nature, and the
(25:29):
notion that we can manipulatenature and that we can change
nature goes against the verybelief structure that we've held
for since time immemorial andum to have technologies, whether
(25:51):
or not they're experimented onon our lands or near our lands.
If they're implemented, they'regoing to impact our ecosystems
and therefore go against ourbelief structure, our
cosmovision, if that makes sense.
Steve Taylor (26:10):
When did the geoengineering start to become
an issue in your community andwhat is pushing them there?
I mean, why?
What's causing this and why dothey?
I mean, I think you know, wecan probably guess that there's,
(26:31):
you know, some of the answer tothat, but what's bringing this
about and how long has it beengoing on?
Where are we?
What does it look like now?
Panganga Pungowiyi (26:40):
Yeah, so when I was pulled in, there was
a particular experimenthappening in Utqiagvik.
So the technology or theory isthat if you spread silica hollow
glass microspheres, thesesilica hollow glass microspheres
, so these tiny, tiny about thewidth reflective, and it will
(27:02):
thicken the ice over time.
So that's the theory.
(27:32):
The incentive of these sorts ofprojects is that they bring in
carbon offsets or sometimescarbon credits.
There's that whole carbonmarket system which helps large
polluters escape accountability.
Essentially, they can say thatthey've done something to
address X amount of you knowthis many tons of carbon or like
reverse the effects of climatechange this much and therefore
(27:57):
are less accountable to thedamage that they've done in a
different, quote-unquote,different part of the earth.
Um, so this team came up toalaska and started experimenting
on a lake outside of utqiagvik.
(28:17):
They had already experimentedin Minnesota and in California
and their next phase was to goup to the Arctic.
So they went up to the Arcticand they were spreading football
fields worth of this material.
And in our communities we knowthat silica is quite harmful.
(28:37):
A lot of our gravel is made upof silica or has a lot of silica
, and we have high rates oftuberculosis and we have high
rates of rheumatoid arthritisand kidney disease.
And silica is linked to allthree of those things.
Is linked to all three of thosethings.
(28:59):
So the idea of spreadingconcentrated amounts in the
Arctic in order to thicken theice and, by their own admission,
snow actually reflects morethan the silica beads do, more
than the silica beads do but toput tons and tons, millions of
(29:25):
tons of this into our ecosystemannually was the idea.
They wanted to spread between$1 and $5 billion worth of the
material annually on the ice.
That was the goal.
Because, remember when I saidat scale, we always have to
(29:45):
think about these things atscale and we had approached them
multiple times.
Native Movement had spoken tothem that's one organization in
Alaska when they were talkingabout moving their materials to
Nome and experimenting outsideof Nome because, quote unquote,
(30:08):
there was no whaling in Nome,and I think that's the other
aspect of this is, um, these arefolks who are removed from our
communities, they're not part ofour communities, not consulting
our communities and not knowingour communities, and then
saying that they're going to goand do the experiments in Nome
(30:28):
because there's no whaling.
Well, there is whaling in Nome.
They didn't know that becausethey didn't talk to anybody.
Steve Taylor (30:34):
A lot of times we think of glass beads.
It's inert, it sits there right.
Okay, so they're glass beads, Imean no, they claimed it was
non-toxic.
Panganga Pungowiyi (31:01):
But the company later shut down their
experiments or their projectaltogether because of the
potential for ecotoxology.
Steve Taylor (31:13):
Did they conduct any experiments, or was it all
just proposed?
Panganga Pungowiyi (31:18):
Did they conduct any experiments or was
it all just proposed?
No, they were spreading thematerials on a lake outside of
Utqalvik without the free, priorand informed consent of the
tribes.
So they did not speak to thetribes, they did not talk to the
community.
They went through onefor-profit organization to do
that.
To do that it was notresponsible at all and they
(31:41):
didn't consult any of the tribalgovernments and they actually
weren't informing anybody ofwhat they were doing or why.
But they did partner with theuniversity, the local university
, and used Indigenous kids whowere going to that university to
spread the materials, which isa whole other issue.
Steve Taylor (32:08):
Did you ever approach any government agency
or state government about thatby chance?
Panganga Pungowiyi (32:14):
So a lot of these experiments are so
foreign and so new that theyaren't categorized under the
regulations.
Steve Taylor (32:25):
Viewing the Arctic environment as one thing, one
thing alone reflectivity and ice.
The idea that we're going topreserve the glacier.
Panganga Pungowiyi (33:00):
But that stands in quite a contrast to
how it's viewed by people whohave lived there for thousands
of years.
And to not include people withthe intimate relationship to the
land and the water and the ice,to not include us in the
conversations when oneidentifying the problem and two
identifying the solution to theproblem, that's dangerous.
It's not just disrespectful andit's not just going against our
sovereign rights.
It's not just disrespectful andit's not just going against our
(33:20):
sovereign rights, it's alsojust dangerous and, frankly,
stupid.
Steve Taylor (33:27):
Because, as you said, these are experiments but
if they think, actually be ableto predict what's going to
happen at scale.
Panganga Pungowiyi (33:50):
Yeah, I mean, if you're doing, quote
unquote, small scale testing andthen you implement,
implementation is also testingbecause, like you, just you
can't know what's going tohappen.
And and we've seen experimentsyou know happen in the past that
um were well-intentioned, youknow, things like um, like
(34:20):
decreasing the amount ofdiseased mosquitoes by only
allowing males to survive, orlike trying to breed them out,
and then it just ends up havinga completely different effect
than was originally intended,anticipated.
(34:47):
So nature, just like weactually did some community
research, community-basedresearch, collecting qualitative
data from indigenous communitymembers in Alaska, without
(35:07):
tainting the data or otherwiseshowing bias around
geoengineering.
So we presented the idea ofgeoengineering.
You know, shared directly fromwebsites, what the intention of
these projects were.
(35:45):
Um, and you know the, theresponses that we got about how
you cannot, you cannot overpowernature, like she's always going
to, she's always going to punchback or she's going to it's,
it's never going to be what youexpect.
And there was lots of, a lot ofwarnings and a lot of wisdom
that had been passed down frompeople's you know, grandparents
and great-grandparents aboutwarning against doing these
sorts of things.
Steve Taylor (36:04):
Well, it's very interesting.
I mean when you were describingthe potential unintended
consequences.
It's just I realize how much Idon't know about ice.
You know, as a person whodoesn't live in that environment
, you know I don't have thatknowledge and I don't think
(36:25):
culturally you's.
There really is a lot ofunderstanding.
Panganga Pungowiyi (36:31):
Yeah, I mean there's like there was
another experiment that wasactually done in Nome.
Their idea is to have thesewater pumps that sit on top of
the ice and suck water fromunderneath and spill it over the
top to thicken it.
(36:53):
The idea is to have thempowered by green hydrogen
batteries, and if you look atscientific articles and
scientific journals, it showsthat you would need to cover
(37:14):
about 10% of the ice with such apump in order to have any
impact at all.
Um and then like of course, theimpact is not going to be what
you think it's going to be.
One is not going to be what youthink it's going to be One.
Our ice is not static.
It moves around, it flips.
(37:42):
Our ice can be unpredictable,especially now as the climate
continues to change.
It's not a stable place.
So you're going to have pumpsthat are dumped into the ocean
along with the green hydrogenbatteries.
We also use the water from inthe ocean when we're out ice
fishing.
We use those to keep our holesopen.
(38:04):
Because the salinity, thedifference between Because the
salinity, the difference betweenthe salt in the water and then
the process used to freeze theice, there's less saline over
(38:25):
time, and so if you add salt tothat, it actually has an
opposite effect.
It eventually melts it or keepsthat ice open.
And also, um, the blue cod laytheir eggs at the bottom of the
ice, in the algae that grows atthe bottom of the ice, and that
algae needs sunlight to permeatethe ice in order to grow down
(38:49):
there, and the blue cod needthat algae to continue their
life cycle.
And so, like, having a waterpump suck water from underneath
the ice is going to disrupt thatprocess as well.
It's just, there's so manythings that people from the
outside don't.
They just don't know our iceand they don't know our land.
Steve Taylor (39:14):
Wow.
Has anyone tried to inform themof this?
Panganga Pungowiyi (39:19):
Yeah, I mean yes, and there's too much
to inform them of, right?
So they're going to.
A lot of the times what happensis they'll say, well, we'll put
one of you on our advisoryboard or we'll we'll uh ask you,
you know these 30 questions,and it'll be a consult, and the
(39:42):
expectation will be that weshare, like thousands of years
worth of knowledge with them inthose 30 questions.
So it's so, even if we it'slike I'm not, I'm not trying to
be like rude but um, you know,like when you have a kid and
(40:05):
they want to do something, um,but it's like dangerous for them
to do, but they don't have thecapacity to understand right now
why it's dangerous, or it wouldjust take too much explaining,
or like they're just not, theydon't have the capacity to
understand, and so that's whythey need us and I'm not trying
(40:29):
to be paternalistic at all, butwe have intimate relationship
and intimate knowledge about ourecosystems that we can't simply
share in one consult or evenfive consults Like we need to be
there prior to them developingthat theory.
Steve Taylor (40:51):
And there's also the alternative, too, which I
think you've spoken about a lot,which is, like you know, these
indigenous environments andindigenous cultures are
disproportionately impacted byclimate change, and then there's
people coming in from theoutside wanting to do these
things to save our own self, youknow, because we're going to
(41:16):
have to do something, becausebut it's not addressing the
cause, which is us.
Panganga Pungowiyi (41:23):
Right, it's us and it's oppression, and
it's oppression and it's likethe whole root cause of climate
chaos is our ability, our, theimbalance of relationship, you
(41:44):
know, like the, the poorrelationship that we have with
indigenous peoples, and you knowour lands and our, our
relationship with the water andour relationship with the air.
And if there was no if, if ourrights were restored and we were
not permitted to be sacrificezones, if that was not something
(42:04):
that could happen, if humanrights was the thing, um, there
would be no over emission ofpollution, because you wouldn't
be able to harm people, and soclimate change wouldn't be a
thing.
So there's that.
Steve Taylor (42:24):
I was looking in one of your statements too, that
most of the land that isprotected and not that the
indigenous people are notresponsible for the
overproduction of CO2.
(42:45):
That 80 percent of thebiodiversity exists on
indigenous land, but it tends tobe the most impacted.
And now we have these technoautocrats coming in or want to
be techno autocrats, and they'reputting more of the onus on
indigenous communities.
Panganga Pungowiyi (43:06):
Yeah, I mean like even addressing
oppression in.
Like, even if you justaddressed oppression in one area
, it would help, right?
So if you're looking at thingslike university funding, a lot
of these experiments are housedin universities.
The Scopex project with Harvardthat David Keith was running
(43:31):
and it was funded in partthrough Bill Gates it was a
Gates Foundation $1 milliongrant that was given to Harvard
to develop stratospheric aerosolinjection.
Aerosol injection which wasthey tried to experiment on land
(43:57):
over reservation land inArizona and then, when they were
chased out of there, they wentto Sami territory in Sweden and
they tried to experiment on landover there.
But the accountability or thelack of accountability to
universities who get thisfunding and like send people,
permit people to be sent toIndigenous communities where
(44:22):
they don't have anyrelationships.
You know, it would make moresense to grant that funding to
Indigenous communities todevelop those solutions
themselves.
It would solve a lot ofproblems, even if it's not
addressing oppression on alllevels.
Even that one small move wouldmake such a big difference,
(44:45):
putting the power where itbelongs to frontline communities
and to indigenous communities.
Steve Taylor (44:53):
So what about the carbon capture technology?
Panganga Pungowiyi (44:58):
Yeah.
So in Alaska, for instance,I'll talk a little bit about big
picture legislation stuff andthen I'll get into the
technology itself.
But they just passed like acarbon management bill which
would allow for the use ofpublic lands for carbon capture.
(45:19):
Um and so this like often inthe same way that oil pipelines,
infringes on the right ofprivate landowners and also
public lands.
This is the same sort of thing.
They'll use things, they'llfind ways to gain power,
(45:49):
jurisdiction over private andpublic lands and privatize it,
because it's really about money.
So carbon capture, especiallyin the United States, is about
money.
97% of it in the US is used forenhanced oil recovery, where
they flush out nearly depletedoil wells, which is what they're
(46:11):
going to be doing here, becausethey're putting those
facilities near the Cook Inletwhere they had oil production,
and they flush out those oilwells to get the rest of the oil
and to get it quicker.
So they can count the quickprocess as carbon credits and
(46:34):
they count as offsets thecapture of the carbon itself,
which is then quote unquotestored.
But we know that it's reallyused for enhanced oil recovery.
But also there was a carboncapture facility.
(47:15):
Um, one of the pipes burst, thisgreen cloud of gas came down
into a valley where there was acommunity.
Um, people could see the gascoming.
They tried to start theirvehicles to leave, but there
wasn't enough oxygen in the airfor their engines to combust and
so folks were stuck.
(47:37):
The paramedics said that folkswere wandering around in the
dark, foaming at the mouth,confused.
So yeah, I mean it's not greatto have near people.
It's certainly not great for,you know, any wildlife that's in
the area.
They're also going to beimpacted by that, and the amount
(47:57):
of infrastructure that it wouldtake to capture enough carbon.
Even if capturing carbon was aneffective way to address
climate change, which it's notthe amount of land that you
would need there isn't enoughland to use at scale for it to
(48:24):
even make a difference, it costsa lot of money make a
difference.
Steve Taylor (48:39):
It costs a lot of money, it gets large polluters
off the hook and it's not safe.
Well, we're going to have to doanother episode because there's
more to talk about, but thishas been an enlightening episode
and it has been a pleasurespeaking with you.
It's just so much going on inthe Arctic, in your region, than
(49:20):
I had anticipated.
Thank you for joining us onBreaking Green.
Thank you for joining us ondonations by people like you.
Please help us lift up thevoices of those working to
protect forests, defend humanrights and expose false
solutions.
Simply text GIVE to 17162574187.
(49:44):
That's 17162574187.
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