ABSTRACT
In view of the global climate emergency and the need for states and municipalities to satisfy criteria for their renewable energy portfolios, many policymakers and environmental organizations are willing to overlook the negative consequences of massive-scale hydroelectric developments. The Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project under construction since 2012 in Labrador, Canada, should serve as a warning of the destructiveness of large dams, which is no less than it was a quarter of a century ago despite a change in language and new strategies for taking resources from Indigenous peoples. Today, the river and land protectors fighting to halt the Muskrat Falls project in Labrador demonstrate the impacts of this technology, which is neither carbon neutral nor “renewable.” Indeed, the world will need natural floodplains and intact boreal forests for climate resilience. Megadams intended for exporting electricity over long distances can also become barriers to the kind of decentralized, local, small-scale energy systems that the climate justice movement envisions.
