Renewable Energy an Environmentalist’s Dilemma

Jim Harbison

How many of you have traveled to Palm Springs, California, or across the Tehachapi mountains east of Bakersfield or the Altamont Pass east of San Francisco or the plains of western Texas and have seen the gigantic wind turbines that dot the horizon or cover entire mountain sides. Some think these massive manmade industrial forests are quite attractive and commend them for the “clean” energy they produce. Have you seen the massive solar panel fields located in the Mohave Desert, or the 775,000 solar panels installed on the 380 acre site outside Boulder City, Nevada? I find both wind turbines and solar panels to be offensive blights and visual pollution on otherwise beautiful natural landscapes.

My environmental friends do not share my opinions and fail to understand my interest in protecting the visual quality of the environment. To me there is nothing attractive or scenic about these massive wind turbines that spoil the scenic tranquility of the landscape, or wreak havoc on the migration of birds, and emit noises that disrupt the solitude of nature. The massive fields of solar panels are equally destructive to the unique scenery of the areas in which they are located.

How can these same environmentally conscientious individuals, who want to lock up the wilderness to protect it from the ravages of mankind, advocate the destruction of vast areas of our natural landscapes to install these “clean” energy systems. How many acres of scenic lands are now littered with these ugly, noisy, or visually offensive devices? How much of our natural scenic beauty has been or will be rendered useless by the environmental “renewable energy” movement that claims to protect the environment for future generations?

Solar panel installations remove massive amounts of acreage from public use. The Bureau of Land Management has identified three areas in New Mexico as Solar Energy Zones (SEZs) which has the potential of removing 110,000 acres of land from public use. Not only will this land be inaccessible to the public but it will be dotted with man-made devices that will destroy any natural scenic beauty of the same lands the environmentalists keep telling us they want to protect. Do they truly want to dedicate 77,000 acres southwest of Las Cruces, or 22,000 acres near Alamogordo for solar energy zones? It would be interesting to calculate the total number of acres of land that these renewable energy projects have already removed from public use or adversely impacted the landscape and natural beauty of the nation.  

I find it difficult to understand how so many people in southern New Mexico could lobby for the wilderness bill to protect the Organ Mountains and our deserts and still advocate construction of renewable energy projects on public lands. These two concepts seem to be a collision course toward their mutual destruction because of their environmental implications. How is renewable energy compatible with the efforts of the Wilderness Alliance to protect public lands from all forms of development? Recently Wilderness Alliance staff attorney Judy Calman stated in the Las Cruces Sun-News that solar development can be destructive, mostly because the projects require such large areas and cause considerable disturbance.

Is this another case of the “not in my backyard” mentality of the environmentalists. Even the late Senator Ted Kennedy lobbied for environmental policies including renewable energy but later opposed its construction near his community. It appears that the environmentalists have created a monumental obstacle to renewable energy through their policies to establish wilderness areas that lock out ALL development – including their own renewable energy projects. Perhaps it’s poetic justice.

Renewable Energy an Environmentalist’s Dilemma