An Inconvenient Truth and the Desert Tortoise

In the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore presents his audience with a chart that shows the relationship between CO2 levels and atmospheric temperature through history. As CO2 levels increase, temperature increases. Now, due to all the ways we've managed to pollute our atmosphere, the CO2 levels are higher than ever before and increasing at a faster rate. His graph extended many years into the future to show the results we'd have if we stayed on the same pace and didn't implement procedures for decreasing those CO2 levels. He never labeled the corresponding temperature, I don't know why, but I would say that it was high enough that humans would not be capable of living. There is merit in this information, otherwise he and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change never would have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their research. That documentary has helped shape the way we think. People are taking measures to "go green," companies are reformulating their products to be more environmentally friendly, we are all working diligently to obtain our energy from renewable resources, et cetra, et cetra. All things we SHOULD have been concerned with long before we were faced with the problem we have today.

This leads me to a rather promising, yet quite disturbing, article I read. Dozens of companies, from Goldman Sachs to small Silicon Valley startups, are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to apply to the US Bureau of Land Management for leases on land in the Mojave Desert. Why would companies pay a minimum of $100,000 in application fees alone for land in the Mojave, you ask? Because a land that has been all but barren is now the perfect place to erect solar panels to collect that good 'ol renewable energy from the sun that the good God gave us. There are 3.5 million acres of the Mojave Desert that people are interested in for their solar companies. To put it all into perspective, 1 million acres can produce 66 gigawatts of electricity each year; the entire state of California currently consumes 33 gigawatts of electricity annually. And the largest solar power plant in operation today produces a meager 15 megawatts annually (that's mega, not giga; a megawatt is 1/1000 of a gigawatt). It's about freakin' time, right!?

But there's a catch...there's always a catch. 80% of that land has been designated as federally protected wilderness or wildlife species habitat. That leaves only 700,000 acres to be used. Land leases are already being denied because they lie in areas protected as habitat for the desert tortoise. I want to preface my opinion with the fact that I am all about preserving wildlife. When God created the universe and everything that goes along with it He gave humans dominion over the earth and all its inhabitants. That means that we are in charge of ensuring its health and prosperity, that is, of the earth, all living creatures and all human beings. Animals are living creatures that deserve our respect and care. The preservation of each species is vital, not only to the species itself, but to the ecosystem it is a part of; extinction could result in any number of minimal to vast consequences. But it is also our duty as human beings to preserve the earth and the human race so future generations can not only exist, but thrive.

There comes a time when we must weigh the importance of issues and prioritize. We must do what we can, while we can, to preserve the earth so we can have a tomorrow. Is it wise to place the needs and future existence of an animal above that of humans? Afterall, without a habitable earth, there will not be a place for the desert tortoise to live anyway.