Earth Island Institute

Internecine battles are never fun, especially when they are occurring among your friends. In a story in today’s New York Times Felicity Barringer discusses an ongoing squabble among environmentalists in Southern California.

On one side: Carl Zichella, a Sierra Club expert on renewable power and Johanna Wald, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. They are promoting the installation of three thermal-solar plants in the Mohave Desert to generate renewable energy for southern California.

On the other side: David Myers, executive director of the Wildlands Conservancy, which is working to place hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land in the Mojave Desert off limits as a national monument.

Recalling a similar green showdown involving wind turbines off the Cape Cod coast a few years ago, Barringer writes: “the environmental movement finds itself torn between fighting climate change and a passion for saving special places.”

One has to be careful about getting in the middle of family feuds but … I think Myers has his head in the (Mojave) sand.

Yes, by all means we need to encourage energy efficiency and conservation before building new power plants. And, yes, we must ensure that any new development is extremely careful not to harm sensitive habits and species.

At the same time, we have to remember that global climate change is a complete game changer. The “special place” that Myers loves won’t be so special if a 2 degrees C increase in temperatures makes the Mojave look more like the Sahara. Scientists are already warning that unless carbon dioxide emissions are checked (by, for example, thermal solar energy), the Mojave’s signature plant, the Joshua Tree, may go extinct.

Barringer reports: 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.

Well, because if you don’t, there’s not going to be much of an earth to preserve.

As the climate change threat becomes more pressing, tensions like those playing out in the Mojave are only going to become more common. At some point, there’s going to be a similar battle between putting up windmills and preserving a ridgeline, or tapping some geothermal power and conserving an alpine meadow.

The choices aren’t going to be easy. But I’m afraid to say that if we really want to kick the coal-oil-and-gas habit, we might just have to destroy the desert in order to save it.

 

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