[genocidicbunny]

> And I happen to think that maybe humanity should learn how to leave some things alone. Deserts have fragile, intricate ecosystems. This fucks them up. We need to learn to stop fucking things up to gobble up more energy.

A lot of people are responding to your other point about proximity, but I think this is the much more salient one.

Deserts are not dead. They are ecosystems too, and just paving over deserts with solar and wind is going to harm those ecosystems. We spend so much time and effort to elucidate the ecological harm that fossil fuel power generation does but we seem to be content to ignore how much damage solar and wind can do too.

No, this is not an argument against using solar and wind. We absolutely should be. Just...we need to stop ignoring the costs of these methods. There's no free lunch in this world.

[seanmcdirmid]

Wouldn’t solar benefit desert ecosystems by providing more shade? Most desert animals are nocturnal anyways, I guess you might even see more activity during the day. I don’t think solar means “paving the desert”, most panels aren’t at ground level, and they aren’t even that close to each other.

[genocidicbunny]

> Wouldn’t solar benefit desert ecosystems by providing more shade?

Potentially. Just as likely to destroy the ecosystem though. Barring a few human-caused ones, most deserts have been around for a long time, and the plants and animals that live in them are adapted to them as they are. Maybe additional shade will provide a new niche for some organisms, but it will also disrupt the existing ones.

> I don’t think solar means “paving the desert”

If we take any solar installation of notable size as disrupting the existing system, then the difference between literally and figuratively paving the desert becomes moot.

[rdevsrex]

Unfortunately, I don't think we get out of this without damaging the environment to some degree. Hell, just mining the copper that goes into this stuff damages the environment.

So yes deserts are fragile, but what isn't? Something is going to suffer no matter what.

[genocidicbunny]

My point isn't that we need to avoid the damage, it's that we shouldn't ignore it. It's really no better ignoring the negative consequences of renewables than ignoring the consequences of fossil fuels. They may be less, but as you point out they still exist and we need to do more to mitigate them.