You Knew This Was Coming, Didn't You?
As David Myers scans the rocky slopes of this desert canyon, looking vainly past clumps of brittlebush for bighorn sheep, he imagines an enemy advancing across the crags.
That specter is of an army of mirrors, generators and transmission towers transforming Mojave Desert vistas like this one. While Whitewater Canyon is privately owned and protected, others that Mr. Myers, as head of the Wildlands Conservancy, has fought to preserve are not.
To his chagrin, some of Mr. Myers's fellow environmentalists are helping power companies pinpoint the best sites for solar-power technology. The goal of his former allies is to combat climate change by harnessing the desert's solar-rich terrain, reducing the region's reliance on carbon-emitting fuels.
Mr. Myers is indignant. "How can you say you're going to blade off hundreds of thousands of acres of earth to preserve the Earth?" he said.
Terry Frewin, a local Sierra Club representative, said he had tough questions for state regulators. "Deserts don't need to be sacrificed so that people in L.A. can keep heating their swimming pools," Mr. Frewin said.
Mark S.:
LOL!
Stupid is as stupid does...
March 24, 2009, 8:22 amKevin:
i find it ironic that liberals can be completely in favor of covering our deserts with windmills and solar panels but completely opposed to building oil rigs in our tundra.
March 24, 2009, 9:42 ammorganovich:
we have been getting this in the bay area for some time.
one man's fabulous renewable energy windmill is another man's condor mincer. the enviros have been battling each other in court on this for years.
March 24, 2009, 11:02 amNASCAR Wife:
While I realize most people who have live on the coasts can't imagine finding anything of beauty in the desert, this lifelong Arizonan finds the desert far more majestic than frozen Tundra, swamps or grasslands.
March 24, 2009, 11:07 amrxc:
BANANA Build Ansolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone (The son of NIMBY)
And of course, all those previous "unforsaken wastelands" where no one wanted to live, and where we put stuff like nuclear test facilities, are now "fragile ecosystems" that need to be protected.
The environmental movement is determined to depopulate the planet, and it has figured out that by choking off the energy supply, it can succeed. It now has everything lined up to make this happen, with the Democrats in charge in the Congress and Obama in place in the White House. It will be a very interesting couple of years...
March 25, 2009, 5:47 amJohn O'Hara:
Another national monument... to keep out the solar panels. I'm STILL sour over Clinton's establishment of seven national monuments in Arizona during his final term. All because of one native snake or a fly that is endangered. I do not oppose parks and preservation, but when they're forced onto the people of a state because higher snob in a higher office things it has to be saved, I get really unhappy.
At least I get to read about the hilarious legal fight between two environmental groups, the preservationists and the "green engergy" group. Hopefully this will not be a long stretch, but they are both going to destroy each other over time to the point, everybody has gotten sick of picking sides on every stupid environmental issue that basic sanity returns. Yeah polluting the air and water is a bad thing, not just an environmental standpoint but also a Quality of Living standpoint, but on the same level, its practically impossible to be 100% pollution free on everything.
March 25, 2009, 6:17 amtomw:
On the air yesterday(?) was an advertisement for solar power. Slipped in with all the *good news* was the comment that a square *96* miles on a side would provide all the power needed in USA.
March 26, 2009, 8:51 amNinety Six Miles on a side, or 9,216 square miles of solar panels.
I don't think the average consumer can comprehend the figure, much as the millions of tons of CO2 released sum up to millionths of the mixture that makes up the atmosphere. The amount of silica, aluminum, steel, concrete and plastic to build such a complex is staggering. I would like to see it related to the current annual output of those materials. Can you envision the statement made in that context: "We could provide all the power we need using solar panels, but it would take XX years to produce the concrete necessary."
Most people have no idea of how much CO2 is as a portion of the atmosphere. Trying to describe it as about *4* pixels on a 1024 X 1024 monitor is the best example I can relate.
tom
Dan:
If the Mojave's partisans had had the happy opportunity to live in or near the beautiful Sonoran desert, they might be less protective of their third-rate slum of a desert.
March 27, 2009, 2:48 pm