Back in 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom offered a bill giving the state’s iconic Western Joshua Trees “protected” status.
The Western Joshua Tree Conservation Act was prompted by the California Fish and Game Commission’s inability to act on a petition filed more than three years ago seeking to list the living symbols of the California desert as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act.
“Compromise is always painful,” said Brendan Cummings, conservation director of the Center for Biological Diversity and an author of the petition. “But at the end of the day, I’ll be happy if this bill passes.”
The Newsom Administration’s intervention reflects a volatile reality: Opponents of the petition warn that listing the western Joshua tree could derail private property improvements and renewable energy projects designed to help meet California’s climate change goals of shifting the state’s electricity system entirely off fossil fuels by 2045.
However, in 2020, Avantus (the developer behind the project) received an exemption from Newsom’s Fish and Game Commission to clear the trees. Arguably, the 2023 measure is a cover for the realities that are now being played out in the state.
As I noted in an earlier post, climate cultists insisted that they needed to chop down the Joshua Trees to save them from the carbon dioxide plants actually need for life. In the senseless quest for renewable energy utopia, a solar energy firm was given permits to proceed with the Aratina Solar Center, over the deep concerns and objections of area residents.
Despite comments and concerns from residence in Boron and Desert Lake, the Kern County Board of Supervisors approved a solar farm project which will include five different sites in the East Kern County area; the board voted on the approval at their October 12th meeting in Bakersfield.
It appears a massive green energy project cannot begin without a substantial outcry from the nearby residents, whose communities are being deeply impacted with few real gains in sustainable or reliable energy.
This week, work began on felling 3,500 of the 4,700 Joshua Trees that are on the site of the solar farm.
A 2020 survey counted 4,700 trees on the project site. Since then, however, the size of the project has been reduced.
Hundreds of Joshua trees appeared to have been destroyed in the last week, but on some portions of the site the trees still stand, residents said. Neither the company nor government agencies would say how many trees have been cut down. Avantus, the developer, said fewer trees will be destroyed than the government approved.
Heavy equipment has not yet started leveling the land where the trees were felled to prepare for the solar panel installation.
Residents fear the earth-moving work will increase the threat of valley fever — a fungal respiratory infection that is transmitted in dust. A local group found the fungus that causes valley fever in samples of topsoil from the five parcels surrounding the towns where the solar panels will be built.
Residents are continuing to fight, launching a petition to halt further destruction of the Joshua trees.
A petition against the project was launched earlier this summer and currently has over 52,000 signatures.
“Ancient Joshua Trees are going extinct, and we must save them. The Aratina Solar Project in Boron, California, is approved to destroy nearly 4,000 ancient Joshua Trees in this forest…These iconic trees have stood for centuries, providing habitat for numerous species and contributing to the unique biodiversity of our region,” the petition read.
If California politicos were seriously interested in reliable and affordable energy and protecting Joshua trees, they would be making plans to erect Generation IV nuclear reactors.
Instead, we are going to spend decades recovering from the environmental damage caused by climate cult pseudoscience.
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It’s already been established that trees, and whales, raptors, etc., don’t count when it comes to spending on environmental programs.
Just like their woke values do no longer count as soon as they are amongst people from a specific religion or skin color.
Just like the biggest environmental desaster wasn’t worth mentioning after the USA blew up North Stream.
Just as feminism stopped existing once men with wigs started entering womens sports and bathroom.
Just as 20 mio aborted and 100000 killed black lives absolutely did not matter(ans still do not) until you ain’t George Floyd.
Just as 16.000 ethnic Russian killed in East Ukraine by Pororshenko and Zelensky from 2014 – 2022 did not matter.
Just as the looting of Haiti by Hilaries foundation +brother was fine and calling an opposition leader a Cannibal was fine also,
but calling cat &dog eating Haitians what they are is a crime despite the fact that they do this also in Dominican Republic and they already did this in Florida in the 90ies.
As occult stronghold and place the real life Zombie originated from they still haven’t started with veggie voodoo ceremonies and need a steady supply of sacrifice.
gotta destroy the planet to save it
Hitchhikers’s Guide to the Galaxy
Green NGOs have gone full “renewable energy” advocates, and screw the environment.
RIDGECREST, Calif. – Today, the Bureau of Land Management issued a Notice to Proceed authorizing Avangrid to begin construction of the Camino Solar Project, a 44-megawatt solar photovoltaic facility that will be located on 233 acres of public lands and 150 acres of adjoining private land in Kern County. – total of 383 acres with the average capacity factor of 30%
cordova electric power plant in granbury texas produces 260 Mw on approx 200 acres
Basically a gas electric generation plant produces 18-25 more electricity per acre of land.
Wind is even worse 1/30th to 1/50 of a gas electric generation plant per acre
It would be interesting to see how much Avantus contributed to political campaign funds. These large scale projects make more sense as a way of generating campaign funds than as solutions to energy needs. Witness the preference for large scale solar versus roof top solar.
As long as they save the smelt! We will destroy the planet in order to save it. /sarc
We had to rip up the village by the roots, stack the village into huge burn piles, and then light the match … to save the village!
Sacrifice is an element of voodoo.
Sins by the righteous are to be ignored as their intentions are good.
Sarc off.
Although California was once the leader in protecting wildlife with many examples such as saving the few remaining condors in existence bringing their population to nearly sustainable numbers, they now propose killing endangered species including condors to build new “renewable” energy projects.
Government Proposes First Take Permit for Condor Deaths at a Wind Farm | Audubon
How do people that once were for preservation of species turn against the very cause they were championing just a few years ago. This must be Jim Jones level of madness.
I believe Little Barry set the precedent, or at least herded it along by dramatically increasing the raptor take permits for wind farms years ago. Taking us full circle back to Faith No More.
Audubon always tries to tack between what’s good for birds and the general enviro insanity. Here in Wokeachusetts, the state wildlife guys convinced them that clearcuts are awesome- to get early succession bird species. That’s sort of true but not entirely. It’s complicated. Sounds good in theory but I think the wildlife guys like clearcuts because the deer like them. Or so they claim. More like hunters like clearcuts because they can more easily see the deer and harvest them if lucky.
There is no food for deer on a large mature tree. Wildfires and clearcuts fix that. Deer also like many of the plants humans place around their houses and in the gardens. Question: What percentage of foresters harvest deer?
You don’t necessarily need a wildfire or clearcut. In the Northeast- most forests have a mix of trees of all ages. So, maybe no food on a large, mature tree, but there are small trees present, also. An old growth forests will have few young trees except where an old tree died or blown over. Deer do like coming into yards. They say it’s a huge problem in the Bah-stin metro area- since few people there will allow hunting, even in a property big enough to make it legal- so much is locked up in parks, reserves, and state land. What percent of foresters harvest deer? hardly anyone hunts anymore in Wokeachusetts. Can’t go around murdering Bambi, yuh know. 🙂
Deer are plentiful in Wokeachusetts while wild fire and clearcuts are rare. Clearcuts are justified if the forest is of very poor quality, mostly due to past high grading. In recent years, some promote the idea of “patch clearcuts”- small ones scattered around a large area- the rest of the acreage might not be cut at all- or only thinned.
There is no forage for deer in a mature forest – the canopy shades the ground so much that nothing grows under the trees. Clearcuts end up being meadows, which feed both deer and bears. The deer graze on small trees and plants, while the bears eat berries and deer.
“There is no forage for deer in a mature forest”
In softwood forests but not in hardwood forests which tend to be of mixed ages.
Your question is a good one. Two reasons likely apply: they are on the take; they are useful idiots.
Lemmings gonna lem. I believe that most of these people never had even a rudimentary understanding of ecosystems, and simply wanted that logo for their social credit score.
Lemmings don’t actually commit suicide by following each otber over a cliff.
The Disney crew who made the movie White Wilderness, which is the origin of the lemming suicide myth, drove the lemmings off the cliff.
Be glad you don’t live in California, where everything causes cancer.
Apparently of the brain.
And the soul.
For years and years people here have been advocating for forest management and thinning trees, and now that somebody is actually doing it, nothing but complaints.
Just no pleasing some folks.
Everything is situational, sir: thin trees that need preservation, and ignore trees that are choking in their own waste.
Lets pretend that this statement isn’t just sarcasm or trolling….
In an ideal world, decisions like this would be weighed upon the scale of Human Flourishing, but in this case it is not, its about vanity, grift and rent seeking. (granted, corrupt people will flourish).
I don’t know how many people are in the community that are pure NIMBY, and I’m sure that articles only have interest when the reader learns something valuable or when there is something salacious or in conflict. This culture surely cares most about the latter two. There is nothing in this article that has valuable information, and no images of Burning Man, so this is just an article to stoke conflict, so the opposition to this project just might be mostly inflated for the rhetoric.
Maybe its supposed to be about the irony, but here you bring up “forest management” as somehow being relevant. Its only relevant if one has a child-like understanding of the world around them and the words “forest management” are just sounds that simply mean “cutting down trees” without any consideration for context or purpose.
Understood that removing impediments to building a solar farm are necessary, and in this case the destruction of a few hundred acres of desert trees that nearly everyone on Earth has neither never seen or don’t know/care if they exist. If anything, people might care because a handful of influencers have told them that they should care – and that is the extent to all they need for justification to care, and in less than a May fly’s lifespan will care.
So does building a solar farm promote human flourishing? Surely more than a stand of Joshua Trees. A lot of trees, hills and swamps have been removed for reasons far less than generating weather dependent energy converters.
So “forest management” is probably better reserved for entities that are charged with the responsibility of maintaining a healthy and productive forest, which often should include removing deadwood, sick and withering trees to keep down fire, but also recognizing that trees are a crop and that harvesting that preserves the land yet yields profits and wealth is what makes good management differ from reckless clear-cutting or worse, “leaving the forests pristine”.
Actually it is trolling, but for the newbies around here who thought otherwise, I don’t do /sarc tags.
Yes, biodiversity is of no value. /sarc
Were any of those advocates talking about trees in deserts, where wildfires are non-existent?
Have you ever seen the Mojave Desert?
In a feeble attempt to clear up your acute case of cognitive dissonance, desert echo systems are not classified as forest in any context that I have ever observed.
The Joshua trees are in a desert and an important part of the ecosystem. They don’t need thinning. They are merely a sacrifice to the climate gods.
Edit: I see below that you were trolling.
It’s all about the environment until it isn’t.
Theme song of the California environmental movement:
Insanity.
This decision ranks right up there with the decision to cull barred owls on the foolishness scale!!!
California is just crazy dumb!!
Well then, the masks they all surely still wear will actually be useful.
So, is this in Joshua Tree National Park? It wasn’t in the text of the post, but in the tag at the bottom.
If so, seems ironic. Enviro nuts seem concerned enough about glaciers receding in Glacier National Park to destroy civilization, but not the Joshua Trees in said National Park.
But, but-the glaciers have been retreating since the end of the Little Ice Age-and a National Park is meaningless to the Greenie Nazis. I guess follow the money is not gonna happen (Solendra and others) (cough,cough)
Campaign contributions matter more than Joshua trees and (almost?) everything else.
There are new designs for nuclear reactors using “pebbles” that are spheres contain the fuel with layers around it.to protect the fuel.
Molten salt is used instead of water so iff a sphere leaked fuel from a ‘pebble’ it would dissolve in the salt.
That compares with fuel rods in current nuclear reactors.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/approval-of-nuclear-pilot-plant-that-uses-molten-salt-coolant-instead-of-water-a-step-towards-safer-reactors/4018890.article
In China they have just test a nuclear reactor that uses pebbles as well but uses helium as the coolant and they say it won’t meltdown either.
https://www.ans.org/news/article-6241/china-pebblebed-reactor-passes-meltdown-test/
How would they howl and file lawsuit after lawsuit if the Joshua Trees were being cleared to build a nuclear power plant!
Boy howdy. Or if those trees were endangered smelt.
Yet another example of bad government, Newsom is the face of really really bad government. Get the government out of the energy generation and distribution business and this mess will go away.
Gruesome Newsome is the Justin Castreau of Commifornia!
Sadly, most people won’t recognize the nature (and number) of the sociopaths so prevalent in our Western governments now until they are being strangled by high energy costs and red tape; or just good old fashioned euthanasia in Canada’s case!
So, at what point do climatistas realize they’re basically selling “we had to destroy the environment to save it”.
Nearly three generations of environmental propaganda and brainwashing have produced a society so intellectually and emotionally damaged that it may no longer be possible to prevent the masses from following their instructions to hurl themselves off the Climate Hoax Cliff!
Induced psychosis and neurosis seems to be a large, new outcome in our modern education system, while scientific and historical illiteracy make it easy for corporate elites to continue to plunder and loot Western economies for the benefit of themselves and the politicians they own!
I wish I had a grand plan for healing the insanity that is gripping our world, but I can’t find anything besides quietly and firmly speaking the truth to those that can still hear! And thank God for WUWT!
AWG is clueless, not mention ignorant .. There are no “forrest” of Joshua trees in the traditional sense of what we think of as forrest.. Like the Saguaro cactus of the Sonoran Dessert they are scattered about and take several decades to reach full maturity.. Joshua trees are vital to the health of the dessert environment.. The Mojave dessert is being blanketed with useless solar farms, and in the process, being destroyed. The dessert tortoise is another casualty of this war on our environment. The Mojave dessert is truly an amazing place. For those of us who frequent and enjoy it’s harsh and inhospitable climate, it goes without saying that, not only is it well worth saving, but must be saved..
Don’t worry, Starfleet has discovered Joshua trees on many other planets!
https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Plants-and-Fungi/Joshua-Tree
“Joshua trees don’t have annual growth rings like actual trees, so accurately determining their age is quite difficult. Instead scientists measure the height of a Joshua tree and divide it by an estimate of growth per year. One Joshua tree in California is thought to be over 1,000 years old. A more common lifespan is about 150 years.”
*************
Killing a tree that lives for 150 years (or maybe more) to install a farm of solar panels that may last for 20 years. Am I supposed to make sense of that? Talk about destroying a village to save it.
And BTW, Joshua trees are not actually trees. They are members of the yucca family as I understand it. Scientific name: Yucca Brevifolia.
Kill solar stupidity, not Joshua Trees.
……and who is going to keep the sand and dust off of all those panels every day? Are the panels going to be rinsed off with water……in a desert?