Solar Gold: Mojave Desert Facing Ecosystem Collapse
Robert Lundahl films the voices of the Mojave who are being steam-rolled by Energy development on your public lands :
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Solar Gold documents the impacts of Large Solar development on the Mojave Desert ecosystems and cultural resources.
1. An interview with Jim Andre, Director of the Granite Mountains Desert Research Institute, U. C. Berkeley., predicting ecosystem collapse and massive species extinctions.2. Documents and explains sacred sites at Ivanpah that Brightsource energy says don’t exist, and which should be protected by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
3. Ivanpah Spirit Run to pray for and save the people, plants and animals of the Ivanpah Valley and of the Mojave, with Native American tribal elders and spiritual leaders.
Unedited interview with Jim Andre :
Jim Andre, an ecologist who has studied the Mojave desert, gives a compelling perspective on “Renewable” Energy development focusing on the Ivanpah Solar project. Jim’s articulate description of the significant losses to such projects and what that means for this and future generations, is worth watching and considering as it does great justice to ecological concerns conservationists are voicing about expedited Energy developments all over the country.
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Raw unedited interview with ecologist Jim Andre, Director, Granite Mountains Desert Research Center at University of California, on the dangers posed to the Mohave Desert ecosystem from Large Solar Development. Focusing on the Ivanpah Valley. ©2010 Robert Lundahl, Freshwater Bay Pictures, LLC.
Previous Ivanpah posts on Wildlife News:
Biologists scour Mojave in desert tortoise roundup. 10/9/10
Ivanpah Power Plant – Not Clean Not Green 10/5/10 Dr. Michael Connor
Environmentalists make plea for desert preservation 3/23/10
Last Spring at Ivanpah…? 4/12/09
cartoon via Basin & Range Watch. Click image to 'Friend' Basin & Range Watch on Facebook
“We’re open for business with respect to renewable energy on public lands”
~ Interior Secretary Ken Salazar
UPDATE : Right now at Ivanpah – Coyote Crossing 10/27/10
Protesters from Desert Survivors bear witness as the ecocidal machinery heads for the Ivanpah SEGS site. Laura Cunningham photo.
Brian Ertz
Brian,
Thank you for the posting the Andre interview.
Good Photo Right now at Ivanpah – Coyote Crossing 10/27/10
We need to do so much more in terms of looking at opportunities within impacted areas to generate solar in a decentralized approach. Just look at the average city, and look at the industrially zoned areas with their hundreds of thousands of roof space just waiting to be utilized..and the distribution lines already exist!! It won’t solve all of the switchover problems but why rush to create these huge centralized generation sites with mega-towers being spewed all over the West? Staying with coal and natural gas are not sustainable nor wise, but trashing the desert ecosystems in the process of transformation is just counterproductive.
“The biggest rooftop solar-power array in Arizona and one of the biggest in the nation is pumping out 2.4 megawatts of power atop a south Phoenix warehouse….”
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/2010/10/28/20101028arizona-solar-rooftop-project.html#ixzz13frQZYQX