“Clean energy is our greatest hope for improving the quality of life for all creatures. There is a learning process to all new technological advancement. We need to collaborate and focus on ways to help renewable energy be developed in ways that are scalable to our communities and our environment.”
The negative environmental impacts of desert solar are mostly caused by very large solar farms. Smaller, widely distributed PV on rooftops, landfills, parking lots and other wasteland CLOSE TO LOAD will bring all the benefits of distributed renewable energy without damaging our natural resources.”
— Peter Weich, Absolutely Solar Inc.
Environmentalists Feeling Burned by Rush to Build Solar Projects by Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times
April Sall gazed out at the Mojave Desert flashing past the car window and unreeled a story of frustration and backroom dealings.
Her small California group, the Wildlands Conservancy, wanted to preserve 600,000 acres of the Mojave. The group raised $45 million, bought the land and deeded it to the federal government.
The conservancy intended that the land be protected forever. Instead, 12 years after accepting the largest land gift in American history, the federal government is on the verge of opening 50,000 acres of that bequest to solar development.
Even worse, in Sall’s view, the nation’s largest environmental organizations are scarcely voicing opposition. Their silence leaves the conservancy and a smattering of other small environmental organizations nearly alone in opposing energy development across 33,000 square miles of desert land.