Dear readers, this week we looked at how renewable energy projects threaten local species...
The Mojave Desert, straddling California and Nevada, has been called the Saudi Arabia of solar power. It’s a clean energy developer’s dream: vast open lands, roughly equal in size to the entire state of New Mexico, with an endless bounty of heat from the sun.
Hundreds of thousands of acres of federal land in the Mojave have been made available for solar plants, and applications have been pouring in over the last few years.
But as developers scramble to set up their projects, some scientists and conservationists are warning us not to forget vital ecosystems in the process. This includes threatened cacti and tree-like Mojave yucca, a cousin of the iconic Joshua tree.
“Renewable energy is the future, we need it, that’s obvious,” said Steven Grodsky, an ecologist at the University of California, Davis and co-author of a new study on the effects of solar installations on desert wildlife. The question he said is, “How can we do this in the smartest, most sustainable way possible?”
His research offers important answers.
What do you think? We'd love to hear from you. Cheers, Laura, Amanda and Kyla | 
