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Too Much Focus on Carbon; Not Enough on Habitat Destruction

by Kollibri terre Sonnenblume

Sonoran desert habitat in southern California being wiped out for a solar facility, October 2022. This site is in the range of the Desert Ironwood tree (Olneya tesota), a long-lived species that in exceptional cases can reach 1500 years in age, making them old growth treasures of the desert. [Photo by author]

Sonoran desert habitat in southern California being wiped out for a solar facility, October 2022. This site is in the range of the Desert Ironwood tree (Olneya tesota), a long-lived species that in exceptional cases can reach 1500 years in age, making them old growth treasures of the desert. [Photo by author]

On right is the unbulldozed habitat, of a type called “Creosote Scrub.” The predominant plant species is Larrea tridentata, known as “Creosote Bush” or, in Spanish, Governadora, which is “governess plant,” so-named because she acts as nurse plant for other plants by providing shade. Known in herbalist circles, oddly, as “Chapparal” though “Chapparal” is an entirely different landscape type with a different suite of plants.

On right is the unbulldozed habitat, of a type called “Creosote Scrub.” The predominant plant species is Larrea tridentata, known as “Creosote Bush” or, in Spanish, Governadora, which is “governess plant,” so-named because she acts as nurse plant for other plants by providing shade. Known in herbalist circles, oddly, as “Chapparal” though “Chapparal” is an entirely different landscape type with a different suite of plants.

I recently had an exchange with a climate specialist on Substack that illustrated one of the major problems with current climate discourse. It doesn’t matter who; they do a good job calling attention to important news, and the limitation of their worldview I am highlighting here is not at all unique to them, so I won’t name them. They had put up a post enumerating many of the threats to the environment posed by the incoming Trump administration and its Project 2025, which I certainly appreciate since the more people who call attention to these threats, the better. After expressing that appreciation for their contribution the the topic, I commented:

For the record, a possible silver lining of a Trump administration for some of us is that wildlife habitat, especially in the western deserts, might face fewer threats from industrial green energy projects. For example, Trump’s cancellation of the Crescent Peak Wind Project preserved a site that’s within the area that became the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument under Biden.

I was pointing out the paradoxical fact that Trump’s strike against a wind project ended up sparing an area that Biden then saw fit to protect, though Obama had sought to degrade it. I went on to say:

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