References

United States Geological Survey

Western Ecological Research Center in Henderson Nevada

NASA ORBITEC

"Holocene landscape response to seasonality of storms in the Mojave Desert" by David M. Miller

The Environmentalists's Dilemma by Steve Stein

Senator Dianne Feinstein's website : http://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/

"Expansive fire in Mojave Desert shrubland reduces abundance and species diversity of small mammals" by K.J. Horn and B.R. McMillan

Conserveca.org article on the goals for the Mojave Desert

http://www.mojavedesertblog.com/

http://environmentalgeographies.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/solar-panels-in-the-mojave-desert-americas-contested-green-future/

"Glorious Desert" by Edward Readicker-Henderson

"Death Panels" by Kiera Butler

http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/33186.html (Airplane Graveyard Images)

The Mojave Desert : ecosystem processes and sustainability / edited by Robert H. Webb ... [et al.] ; foreword by Charles Wilkinson.

One last post

From what I have learned in this course, many biomes and ecosystems undergo damage through agriculture. It does not matter if it is commercial or substantial. What is known is that if the rate of agriculture rises, it will destabilize the Mojave ecosystem.

Fire and Resource Assessment Program

According to the table above, agriculture will rise more than 10% in the next 18 years. That is a great amount of land damage in an ecosystem that cannot afford any more disruptions. 

Considering the Mojave contains succulent cacti, there may be less species that can become adaptable to water. This is because in the past 30 years the Mojave has seen less rain fall. This planet is overpopulated, creating an increase in supply and demand for food and energy. Thus companies need to scrap land for their agriculture and burn more fossil fuels, leaving more [CO2] in the atmosphere while biological processes are trying to keep up with stabilizing it (which will take centuries). Global warming is evident and change in weather patterns causes freak storms in certain parts of the world and droughts in areas that need water. 

What can be done?

Educating the public and making this issue hit the front page of major newspapers and other media sources can help improve human impact. The Mojave ecosystem can also benefit from not allowing tourists to visit the majority of the desert and stopping the amount of all-terrain-vehicles from disturbing the surface. Cleaning up the desert is another alternative but difficult especially with harsh weather conditions. Getting rid of abandoned mines, water parks and cleaning up the abandoned airplane wasteland and recycling useful materials is hard work but necessary. Tax dollars should be spent towards these types of cleaning up projects instead of investing them on plans to aggregate water from the desert.

Future of the Mojave

Unfortunately, legislature is not enough to prevent solar and wind farms from being built. Clean energy is being more popularized than scrutinized by newspapers and other forms of media. The public knows little about the impacts made on the Mojave ecosystem and do not weigh the risk versus the benefits. Bright Source and other companies like it will continue to construct solar plants in the Mojave. Desert tortoise are going to be relocated. In a couple of decades, the animal diversity will decrease substantially as will plant diversity if they are swept away by solar and wind plants.

 

More Human Impacts

There are not many population centers in the Mojave but out of the most popularized, their instability erodes the desert landscape. Construction of dams to support the energy demand of cities effects marine life. Las Vegas, Nevada is a cultural hub where every year there is construction of a new casino and hotel. This impact is minimal compared to what other counties are proposing. There are talks about construction of an airport in Ivanpah Valley, construction of a train linking Las Vegas and Victorville (backed by private investors), and another highway connecting Victorville and Palmdale. None of the projects suggest negotiations with The Nature Conservancy about how to approach construction while creating little to no impact on the Mojave ecosystem.

Las Vegas 30 years ago and today

Another impact imposed by humans is fire. According to the Journal of Arid Environments, the only species that thrived in fire was the kangaroo rat while small mammals were reduced significantly. If expansive fires continue to culminate the Mojave ecosystem, the kangaroo rat will dominate the open habitat and limit the growth of perennial vegetation.

Bombs were constantly tested in the Mojave desert which allowed for radiation poisoning of plant and animal species in and around the nuclear testing sites. Even today there are military testing, but now it is mostly rocket engines. The ecosystem impact of such tests nowadays is minimal but existent.

The liter left behind in the Mojave reaches an exaggerated scale. Abandoned mines, abandoned water parks  and an airplane graveyard and but a few of the messes left behind.. 

Human Impacts

An influx of population growth, supply, and demand affect the world's climate which consequently affect ecosystems worldwide. The Mojave is no exception. With the avant-garde clean energy popularized in today's society, there is a question of how to acquire this energy and by when will the nation be energy independent. Two popular clean energy acquisition are through solar farms and wind farms.

There are two types of environmentalists: the preservationists and conservationists. The difference is that preservationists see industry as a threat while conservationists think otherwise. Barack Obama is a conservationists. His strategy of producing "every available source of American energy" is a "strategy that's cleaner, cheaper and full of new jobs". He also announced that it would bring millions of dollars in federal stimulus by imposing on the "solar gold rush". The majority of the proposed solar plants are set to be built in the Mojave Desert. Not only will there be an increase in employment, but more than 3 million homes will be powered by clean energy. Legislature offers incentives for energy efficiency and utilization on clean energy. However, there is correlation between population growth and energy consumption which has become problematic. It has allowed for plans to be drawn up about where to absorb clean energy and by when to satisfy the electric grid. Companies such as Bright Source and others that build solar and wind farms share similarities to corporate businesses. "Energy efficiency...isn't a substitute for new power plants. Driving up the cost of new solar - and wind-power facilities won't spur energy efficiency; it will reinforce reliance on fossil fuels" (Stein, The Environmentalist's Dilemma). Keep in mind that there is competition of which groups can provide renewable energy in a timely manner. The problem is the price tag ($420 billion) and the area required to satisfy the electric grid, which is 46,000 square miles. However, it is still cheaper to construct solar farms than nuclear plants in the United States.

Although the Mojave is an ideal location for solar and wind farms, there is opposition from preservationists. Solar panels are known as "death" panels for their construction disrupts the ecosystem they are meant to save. Preservationists position themselves with wildlife while conservationists choose clean energy. The latter approve construction of wind farms, solar energy plants and hydropower dams. What they do not realize (and what preservationists want to make public) is that wildlife is impacted. Through the already existing wind farms, birds and bats are decimated and marine species are threatened through river flow alteration.

As for the proposed clean-energy projects, there are various steps before construction gets underway. Before any landscape is damaged, companies have to estimate the number of species that will be impacted and where to relocate (thanks to the Endangered Species Act). Around 2,500 species are affected by clean energy project construction. One species endemic to the Mojave ecosystem is the desert tortoise. "Desert tortoises...spend their entire lives within a few miles of their birthplace. If you pick them up and move them, they will promptly freak out and dehydrate themselves by peeing out several month's worth of stored water" (Butler, Death Panels). Compare this to the butterfly effect. If you change something in the past, it throws off the future. Therefore, protecting a tortoise is like protecting the Mojave ecosystem.

Aside from trucks and road construction that will disrupt the Mojave landscape, it is suggested to meet the electric grid by constructing clean energy plants that parallels that of 95% of the Mojave Desert. According to remote sensing by the USGS, perennial vegetation for the Mojave Desert ecosystem is greater than 80%. The map on the left shows the percentage of perennial vegetation. It is not a good idea to build clean energy plants in green areas for they constitute 10% and more of perennial vegetation. The best places to construct solar and wind farms are in the orange and yellow areas for there will be less impact on the ecosystem.



Joshua Tree National Park and the Mojave National Preserve used to be a getaway from civilization, but with more annual visitor impact, the effects are noticeable. From air quality, liter and increase in vulture population, this brings a toll to the Mojave ecosystem. It makes it look aesthetically displeasing and the tortoise population decreases (since they are food to ravens).

Historic Mojave

USGS

Imagine a desert where there are no highways or paved roads. No animal relocation existed and a vast variety of animal and plant species flourished. This was the Mojave ecosystem, pristine in desert tortoise, wildflowers, and succulent cacti. During migration from the East coast to the West coast, people with wagons and their livestock had to cross this desert in order to reach California. You cannot help but pity the poor folk hoping to succeed the gold rush.

Going back a few thousand years further, specifically during the Pleistocene, it was evident through bed marks, rock formations and fossils the desert landscape. There was an abundance of water in such a harsh environment that nowadays turn out to be dried lakes. Elevation were similar to today's elevation. There was a majority of barren land spotted with cacti and the landscape consisted of hill and mountain scenery similar to now.

A Perspective

The majority of the Mojave presides in California and the rest in Nevada, Utah and Arizona. The Mojave Desert takes up about 48,000 square miles.

USGS

Zooming in, notice that the Mojave National Preserve is only located in California. California senator Dianne Feinstein introduced the "California Desert Protection Act of 2011" which allowed new land other than the national preserve to be protected. What is fantastic about this act is that talks on renewable energy plants are on the works yet Feinstein argues that they should be built on "private and disturbed public land."

Still researching...

Henceforth I am beginning to blog about the Mojave Desert. I have been researching for a few weeks and have come to appreciate this ecosystem for a vast amount of years. There is always something personal between myself and the desert. For instance, my favorite flower (California poppy) blooms beautifully in the Antelope Valley. Also, the route to Las Vegas (my second home) is through the Mojave. Yet there is always a beautiful scenery that the majority of people miss out on and nature's beauty is the average person's loss.

I have noticed certain trade-offs in this eco-friendly and environmentally conscience avant-garde society. Slowly, it is becoming taboo to burn fossil fuels and the new energy is reusable. The problem with reusable energy is its efficiency (which engineers and scientists need to improve on by the way) and its installation. Wind and solar farms are installed in the Mojave Desert and it is obvious why. However, good intentions brings a toll to the ecosystem. I'll get to this point in another post. 

It is best to think about the beauty of the Mojave desert and see the benefit it brings us. We can learn so much from visiting this magnificent desert. Not only is its plant and wildlife awe worthy, but its geology and lack of light pollution as well. 

However, there are many unpleasant scenes in the Mojave that must be made aware of and acted upon. Wind farms and solar farms are built in the desert in order to benefit society in the long run. That is understandable. But what about the issues with land usage for these farms? What about the endangered species in this ecosystem? And what is up with the airplane wasteland?