Indigenous peoples from around the world on Wednesday urged Harvard University to abandon a project to test ways to dim sunlight as a fix for global warming, saying it posed huge risks to “Mother Earth”.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, scientists and environmentalists opposed to “solar geoengineering” praised the bid to halt research into an artificial global sunshade, announced at an online conference by the Saami Council representing reindeer herders in the Nordic nations and Russia.

Harvard researchers are studying the feasibility of releasing tiny particles high in the atmosphere, by planes or balloons, to reflect sunlight back into space.

It would mimic how big volcanic eruptions like that of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 can temporarily cool the planet with a haze of dust.

“We do not approve legitimising development towards solar geoengineering technology, nor for it to be conducted in or above our lands, territories and skies, nor in any ecosystems anywhere,” noted a letter drafted by the Saami Council on behalf of indigenous groups, set to be sent to Harvard this week.

In March, pressure from the Saami people and environmental groups led Sweden’s space agency to call off a Harvard-led test of a high-altitude balloon that could pave the way to a later experiment to release a tiny amount of reflective material 20 km (12 miles) high in the atmosphere.

Åsa Larsson Blind, vice president of the Saami Council, said about 30 indigenous organisations from all over the world had signed the draft letter.

Solar geoengineering “goes against the respect” with which the Saami are taught to treat nature and Mother Earth, she said.

Read the full article about calls to stop solar geoengineering at Eco-Business.