[seiferteric]

Hasn't North Africa only been a desert for a few thousand years? It's not exactly some perfectly balanced ecosystem that has existed for a million years or something. Really, it turning to a desert was an ecosystem collapse... Second, Africa is HUGE. The amount of land they would be using for this must be minuscule compared to the area of this ecosystem. Third, not all ecosystems are equal.. The biodiversity of some areas is so much higher than others, it's not comparable. An acre of rain forest must be worth more than an acre of desert.

[Tagbert]

Just because an area has gone through climate change in the past is not an argument that current climate change, which is happening at an accelerated rate, is acceptable. It is that rate of change that makes our current risk so high.

Having said that, I agree that the impact of putting solar panels in this are is likely much less and more local than the impact of burning the fossil fuels that they solar would offset.

[thaumasiotes]

> It's not exactly some perfectly balanced ecosystem that has existed for a million years or something.

There are no ecosystems like that. It's not even a possibility.

[seiferteric]

My point is that this one in particular is pretty new, and was previously completely different (wet and green). I doubt there has even been enough time for much balance to have been achieved. Also some quick googling claims that the amazon rain forest has existed for millions of years (between 10-55 MILLION years), seems pretty well established to me...

[throwawaylinux]

There are ecosystems that are millions of years old. The oldest rainforests have existed for nearly 100 million years.

[eastof]

For anyone interested to learn more: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daintree_Rainforest#History_...

[thaumasiotes]

And if you somehow were able to visit it 80 million years ago, you'd notice that it's completely different now.

[throwawaylinux]

80 million maybe. 8 million maybe not.

[thaumasiotes]

Wrong again; you would also notice that it's completely different 8 million years ago.

It's not difficult to distinguish between a population that migrated one hundred years ago and the source population it was drawn from. 8 million years is... longer than that.

[throwawaylinux]

No, it's called a continuous ecosystem because it remains very similar. Selective pressure would be very similar, unlike the rare case of certain populations changing significantly when facing a very different situation.

You wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a pine tree from 100,000 years ago to one today, let alone 100. Or a rabbit, snake, bee, fish, or bird.