Thousands of endangered Joshua trees to be destroyed to put up solar panels

[Carolinian]

https://weather.com/news/climate/video/solar-panels-to-replace-thousands-of-historic-joshua-trees

 

[buzglyd]

Not to mention the desert tortoise.

 

[rickandcindy23]

That is so ridiculous to take down trees for solar panels.

 

[am1]

All in the name of green energy. I am for solar but on top of commercial/industrial buildings or covered parking. I feel for houses the costs are too high for the real return. Rebates may offset that.

 

[davidvel]

https://weather.com/news/climate/video/solar-panels-to-replace-thousands-of-historic-joshua-trees

Your thread title is false. Joshua trees are not endangered, and neither the state nor feds have determined so. A few thousand trees will not put a dent in the 5-10 million in the desert.

You are against solar, EVs, or anything "green," so don't try to pretend you care about some Joshua Trees.

 

[gravityrules]

Your thread title is false. Joshua trees are not endangered, and neither the state nor feds have determined so. A few thousand trees will not put a dent in the 5-10 million in the desert.

You are against solar, EVs, or anything "green," so don't try to pretend you care about some Joshua Trees.

Shouldn't you take up your beef with weather.com? They are the source of the statements you dispute.

 

[davidvel]

Shouldn't you take up your beef with weather.com? They are the source of the statements you dispute.

No because the video on weather.com said that Desert Tortoises are endangered, not Joshua trees, which are not. The source of the false statement is Carolinian, who created the title of this thread.

 

[Brett]

https://weather.com/news/climate/video/solar-panels-to-replace-thousands-of-historic-joshua-trees

Shouldn't you take up your beef with weather.com? They are the source of the statements you dispute.

No because the video on weather.com said that Desert Tortoises are endangered, not Joshua trees, which are not. The source of the false statement is Carolinian, who created the title of this thread.

LOL

"Carolinian" also says electric car batteries destroy the environment


Oh the humanity !

 

[gravityrules]

No because the video on weather.com said that Desert Tortoises are endangered, not Joshua trees, which are not. The source of the false statement is Carolinian, who created the title of this thread.

Threatened and Endangered are synonyms. I don't see a misleading headline. Perhaps these articles are designed to provoke a response though. There are always tradeoffs to development.

 

[davidvel]

Threatened and Endangered are synonyms. I don't see a misleading headline. Perhaps these articles are designed to provoke a response though. There are always tradeoffs to development.

Not under California or federal law.

 

[am1]

Not under California or federal law.

Nobody thinks they are right about anything. What damage does it take to make a solar panel or ev battery?

 

[Carolinian]

You might remember the documentary film "Planet of the Humans" by progressive filmmaker Michael Moore, which took issue with the wind and solar industry and their ravages to the real enviroment. I don't agree with Michael Moore on much, but he was spot on with much of what was in that documentary. In it he addressed the solar industry's ravishing of threatened desert plants, including the Joshua Tree. I think there is probably still an online link where one can watch that film. The Weather Channel and Michael Moore are on the same side of the Joshua Tree issue.

Wind and solar are very land intensive, which is the crux of their threat to the real environment. In places like Germany, the real environmentalists are constantly suing the wind and solar companies to protect the environment FROM them. Those lawsuits are brought over real environmental issues like deforestation, loss of wildlife habitat, slaughter of birds and bats, etc. One major case that is ongoing is to save the ancient Reihhartswald forest, which was the setting for the Grimm's Fairy Tales, from being clear cut for wind turbines.

Envirormentalism took off after the publication of Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" about the threats to birds. The term "tree hugger" was applied, originating from a line in Tommy James and the Shondells "Draggin' the Line". Today's climate cult cares nothing about either birds or trees, because they push wind and solar which are a threat to both. Nuclear power would appease them on their carbon fixation but not be a threat to the real environment like wind and solar are.

Here is Michael Moore's "Planet of the Humans":

 

[Carolinian]

LOL

"Carolinian" also says electric car batteries destroy the environment


Oh the humanity !

Perhaps you should do some reading on the environmental harm of mining lithium for the EV batteries

The Paradox of Lithium

The clean energy transition depends heavily on lithium, but mining this element is not “clean.” We must not fall into the same traps from which we are trying to free ourselves.

news.climate.columbia.edu

 

[emeryjre]

It is so peaceful until Carolinian drags his environmental concerns into TUG
There are hundreds of web sites with people that want to argue this to the final comma
This is not one of those web sites

 

[easyrider]

That is so ridiculous to take down trees for solar panels.

Even more ridiculous is the clear cutting of Balsa wood trees in the Amazon to make un-recyclable wind turbine blades.

Bill

Planet Strippers: Amazon’s Balsa Forests Being Raped To Make Wind Turbine Blades

Stripping the Amazon basin’s forests of balsa to make wind turbine blade is all part of our ‘inevitable’ transition. So is turning rural China into a toxic industrial wasteland (see above). Giant i…

stopthesethings.com

 

[easyrider]

LOL

"Carolinian" also says electric car batteries destroy the environment


Oh the humanity !

They actually do.

Bill

 

[easyrider]

No because the video on weather.com said that Desert Tortoises are endangered, not Joshua trees, which are not. The source of the false statement is Carolinian, who created the title of this thread.

You do realize that Josua Tree's are protected by law because they are in danger of habitat loss due to climate change. In danger is synonymous with endangered, imo.

Joshua tree's are protected because the California Legislators made a law to defend Joshua Tree's from climate change. Oddly, these 4200 trees are to be destroyed and mitigated by funds to benefit some other species. Interesting is there are numerous sites in the area that would not require destroying any Josuha Trees. I get that there are millions of these trees and millions do burn in wild fires but I kind of like Josua Trees more than solar panels.

Bill

 

[davidvel]

You do realize that Josua Tree's are protected by law because they are in danger of habitat loss due to climate change. In danger is synonymous with endangered, imo.

Joshua tree's are protected because the California Legislators made a law to defend Joshua Tree's from climate change. Oddly, these 4200 trees are to be destroyed and mitigated by funds to benefit some other species. Interesting is there are numerous sites in the area that would not require destroying any Josuha Trees. I get that there are millions of these trees and millions do burn in wild fires but I kind of like Josua Trees more than solar panels.

Bill

Joshua Tree's what are protected? Skin, roots, needles? Kidding aside, no I am not going to bite on your political/contentious discussion of climate change, including why the California politicians enacted the law, but exempted solar farms from the restriction limit on tree removal.

My point had nothing to do with what you want to morph this into, it was simply that Joshua trees are not endangered (the specific legal definition, as opposed to iyo or what anyone else wants it to mean) under either California or U.S. law.
What I do know is that while attempts have been made toward such a designation they continue to fail:

• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) made a finding last year that Joshua trees do not warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act
  
  
• Joshua trees were determined to be a candidate species under the California Endangered Species Act in September 2020. They would need to be moved to threatened, and then could be determined to be endangered, but neither has occurred since then.

 

[Carolinian]

Land intensive wind and solar are a threat to trees, period. When a citizen in Scotland inquired through their version of the FOIA, the Scottish government's forestry agency in January 2020 calculated that just on government land, not including private land, 13.9 million trees had been chopped down, to put up wind turbines and solar panels. That is just on government land in one country.

https://docs.wind-watch.org/Scottish-Forestry-FoI-19-02646.pdf

Anyone who has taken basic science is aware that trees, like all plants, take in CO2 in photosynthesis and give off Oxygen. That is natural removal of CO2 from the air. A lot less of that occurs when you chop down 13.9 million trees. If someone purports to be concerned about CO2, why in the world would they want to chop down 13.9 million trees?

 

[emeryjre]

Since Joshua Trees have come up as a topic
Here is a story with pictures of Joshua Tree National Park
The National Park is stunning with it's views, and Rock Formations
I visit Joshua Tree National Park once a year during the spring bloom of desert wildflowers
Stay at the Marriot Desert Spring Resort in Palm Desert for a couple of nights

MSN

 

[jp10558]

Nuclear power would appease them on their carbon fixation but not be a threat to the real environment like wind and solar are.

Nuclear power is extremely concrete intensive which is to my understanding very CO2 intensive. It's also kind of the most expensive electricity from everything I've seen. What I don't understand is why we would need to cut down trees that anyone cares about to do solar - we have so much "empty" land around this country...

 

[Ralph Sir Edward]

Nuclear power is extremely concrete intensive which is to my understanding very CO2 intensive. It's also kind of the most expensive electricity from everything I've seen. What I don't understand is why we would need to cut down trees that anyone cares about to do solar - we have so much "empty" land around this country...

Concrete is CO2 intensive, but it is "one time", with the building of the power plant. Not an ongoing producer of CO2.

 

[buzglyd]

Nuclear power is extremely concrete intensive which is to my understanding very CO2 intensive. It's also kind of the most expensive electricity from everything I've seen. What I don't understand is why we would need to cut down trees that anyone cares about to do solar - we have so much "empty" land around this country...

Because you have to run hundreds of miles of high transmission lines from “empty” to cities. That’s a lot of concrete and steel and digging up of every stretch of land from “empty.” It’s ugly as heck too.

 

[easyrider]

Since Joshua Trees have come up as a topic
Here is a story with pictures of Joshua Tree National Park
The National Park is stunning with it's views, and Rock Formations
I visit Joshua Tree National Park once a year during the spring bloom of desert wildflowers
Stay at the Marriot Desert Spring Resort in Palm Desert for a couple of nights

MSN

We have missed the spring blooms every trip because we plan trips so far out. My niece travels to bloom areas as they happen and just looking at her pictures the desert blooms are really something. I think it's a poppy bloom. It's on our list of things to see.

Bill

 

[emeryjre]

Because you have to run hundreds of miles of high transmission lines from “empty” to cities. That’s a lot of concrete and steel and digging up of every stretch of land from “empty.” It’s ugly as heck too.

The best place to locate new modular Nuclear plants is at shut down coal fired energy plants
The power lines are in place
Roads, etc. are designed to deal with traffic
They are usually not in high population areas
Upgrading power lines to carry more power along the same routes can be done
So no need for new major power links to be built
Upgrading power lines to carry more power is becoming a topic of interest in our energy planning