Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Save the squirrels, or save the Earth?

I had told a coworker recently that maybe solar panels will cover the southwest US one day and supply most of our energy needs. Unless of course someone finds some endangered species out in the desert somewhere that needs protection. Then I come across an item in Reason about a meeting of governors, including Mr. Schwarzenegger, who had this to share:

The biggest applause line of the day came when the seven-time Mr. Olympia turned the tables on political conventional wisdom about who is hurting the environment and who is helping. "It's not always Republicans" or big corporations, he said, that slow environmental progress. Several companies want to build solar power plants in the Mojave Desert. However, the place where they want to build may be the kind of territory that a particular kind of endangered squirrel would prefer to frequent. Efforts by the California Department of Fish and Game ("my own agency, that I'm supposed to be the head of and the boss of!") to protect "this little creature" have thwarted plans to build planet-saving solar arrays. "If we can't put a solar power plant in the Mojave Desert," Schwarzenegger thundered, "I don't know where the hell we can put it!"

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