Will you protect trees or forests?
Northern California forest taken while driving at sunset. Photo: Allegra Reister
Two summers ago, my family received a harrowing “ready to evacuate” call from CALFIRE, possibly also from Mother Earth herself.
When the sky at my childhood home in Northern California turned from a grayish gray to a phosphorescent orange, I was shocked, sad, angry, and fearful—a common emotion when shelter and basic life are threatened.
Emotions can act as catalysts, and in my case, they lead me to dedicate my career to stemming the tide of climate change. However, emotions can also influence logic and lead to rash decisions.
One form of this irrationality is to prioritize local, small-scale environmental protection over a key goal of combating global climate change. It’s a form of environmental NIMBYism (“not in my backyard”) that claims that pro-environment individuals and organizations are throwing spanners and obstacles on the road to addressing global warming when planning the necessary infrastructure for their backyards .
One such infrastructure project is the 850 MW Battle Born solar project in Mormon Mesa, Nevada. Since it is the largest solar project ever built in the US and has the capacity to power 10% of Nevada’s clean renewable energy, one would think that environmentalists would support the project. However, local residents backed by the Sierra Club have raised objections due to potential impacts on local desert tortoise populations, possible increased dust and general unsightly appearance.
Resident Kevin Emmerich previously worked as a park ranger at Death Valley National Park and identified as a supporter of solar energy. However, due to concerns about desert degradation and the impact on desert tortoises, he said, “It would be a shame to approve this project.”
The locals banned together, creating the Facebook group Save Our Mesa with the goal of protecting the area from any development, including clean energy development. Another resident, Suzy Rebich, wrote on Save Our Mesa, “We’re not against giant solar farms, but we just don’t want them in anyone’s backyard — especially ours.”
The reality is that “not in anyone’s backyard” won’t work. Clean energy requires land for solar panels, windmills, hydro and transmission lines, so literally, it has to go into someone’s backyard.
there is one Similar debate in Maine The New England Clean Energy Connection project is proposed to bring Canada’s hydropower to Massachusetts, saving millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year. However, environmental groups overturned concerns about the ecological impact of North Woods — the 53-mile stretch of land that the transmission line would traverse.
In their mission to halt clean energy projects, the groups have received support from fossil fuel companies and more than $20 million from NextEra Energy, an energy provider that has some renewable assets, but supplies mainly oil and gas to Maine.
The issue turned into a statewide referendum, and Maine residents voted last winter to stop the program. Opponents of the project offer another option: run the transmission line through Vermont.
These debates are taking place across the country. Riverkeeper (NY), Nantucket Residents Against Turbines (MA) and Save North Livermore Valley (CA) are among the local environmentalist groups fighting renewable energy projects.
To be clear, clean energy is not entirely harmless from an environmental standpoint, as land development will certainly displace some trees or organisms. Patrick Donnelly, Director, Nevada Center for Biodiversity, which, in addition to the desert tortoise, also lists the Vetch (a leafy plant) and the white-sided beard (a flower) threatened by solar development in Nevada. But to be sure, these local constraints are barely comparable in environmental terms to burning natural gas, oil and coal. About 80% of U.S. energy consumptionwith an increasingly deadly impact on millions of people around the world.
These tradeoffs are legitimate. What if it was the last surviving bearded tongue population? What if the project plans to encroach on sacred indigenous lands? What if solar farms could move 50 miles east to an area with less competition, but at a considerable cost?
I’m not going to pretend to know how to properly weigh the trade-offs in each situation. What I do know, however, is that as cruel as the argument to ignore local environmental concerns sounds, global warming is cruel too. Desert tortoises may live another 50 years on the Mormon Mesa, but they will also suffer when climate change shortens the rainy season to almost nonexistent.
I admit that this argument is biased because the biggest driver of slowing the acceleration of catastrophic wildfires in my hometown is slowing down climate change. And now, I believe the conservation movement is seeing the trees but not the forest. At some point, climate change will spread to all of our backyards – just like the wildfires that threatened my family. While we managed to avert disaster, many others were far less fortunate during the 2020 wildfire season in California.
Almost everything has an impact on the environment, and when we debate individual rivers or turtle populations, Florida is sinking, it’s cold in texas, Washington is hot, montana drownedand California is burning.
Where are you standing? Will you protect trees or forests?
Allegra Reister is a student at Columbia University Sustainability Science Master’s courses.
