This is Ivanpah. I encourage people to take a look at it on Googlemaps. Its huge.
Now contemplate the Bundy ranch...you know the one that had to reduce its herd of cattle in the name of protecting a turtle.
That turtle’s range, and protected habitat, sprawls from California to Nevada. Nothing is immune...he swathes of land are essentially ‘off-limits’ because of this turtle - including much of the training area at Ft Irwin.
Except Ivanpah.
That giant 5 square miles of mirrors where all the desert brush has been cleared out - that was turtle territory. But its ok, because solar is GOOD...it can’t hurt the turtle, even with something as genuinely damaging as clearing 5 square miles of desert.
But independent ranchers and cattle are BAD. So make believe damage, like turtles getting hurt by cattle who really haven’t bothered them for the last 150 years - that type of damage does matter.
... and they’re roasting birds and producing CO2!