A common misconception about industrial-scale renewable development, especially solar power, is that it is benign to the immediate surroundings. For instance, some believe that a solar farm’s main impact is that it shades the plants and animals living underneath the solar collectors. In truth, solar farms usually scrape the entire project site to provide level terrain. Renewable development in the desert will destroy all of the natural, cultural and visual resources within the project area. In some cases, these impacts extend well beyond the project’s “footprint,” particularly if it would require building hundreds of miles of transmission lines to transport the energy produced.
Unfortunately large segments of the American urban population – who have not had the opportunity to learn about or to experience the wild beauty, the fascinating array of plants and animals, the awesome quiet and dark skies of the desert – imagine that the desert is an empty expanse that would provide a perfect place to meet the nation’s renewable energy needs. The media have promoted this idea of the desert as wasteland and some articles have tried to distill the burgeoning outcry against these large-scale projects down to a case of simple NIMBY-ism.
Many desert residents and activists have been deliberating how to respond to the threats and the public perception I have described above. We decided there is an urgent need to develop a grassroots voice for the desert from a desert communities’ perspective. I am happy to report that, as a first step toward this goal, a dozen or so small non-profit desert-oriented conservation group representatives, environmental justice groups, desert residents, and property owners met over the Labor Day weekend in the Coachella Valley and began our conversation about how to address this major threat to the integrity of our deserts.
Over the course of a long day, we aired our individual groups’ concerns and actions to date and developed goals and a mission statement. We began developing a group strategy to inform the public, the media and decision makers of our intention to protect our desert from gigantic solar and wind farms and to promote local, point-of-use, low-carbon energy development as a more economical, less damaging alternative that can meet California’s aggressive renewable energy goals equally well.
The name of the new group, chosen by vote, is POWER! – “People Only Wanting Energy Responsibility.”
MBCA is a proud member of the new coalition, and, as Terry writes, "We will be joining our voice and actions to the voices of people throughout the California desert and backcountry areas where the threat of industrial energy infrastructure also looms."
Read the rest of Terry's column on pp. 2-3 in the Fall 2008 El Paisano (pdf), along with more educational and empowering desert information from the venerable Desert Protective Council. And be sure to check out their blog!
MORE INFO ON THIS TOPIC: On the Energy page of the MBCA Website. Previous posts: Energy.
