There's a land rush across the nation's most productive farming region, but these buyers don't want to grow crops, they want to plant solar farms. ... Planning department records in four of the valley's biggest farming counties show about 100 solar generation plants already proposed on roughly 40,000 acres, or about the equivalent of 470 Disneyland theme parks. Planners in Fresno County say their applications for solar outnumber the ones they received for housing developments during the boom days. Solar developers have focused on the southern San Joaquin Valley over the past three years for the same reason as farmers: flat expanses of land and an abundance of sunshine. Land that has been tilled most often has fewer issues with endangered species than places such as the Mojave Desert, where an endangered tortoise slowed solar development on federal land. Much of the solar development is proposed for Kern, Tulare, Fresno and Kings counties, which are home to more than 400 crops that pump $30 billion into the economy and help sustain U.S. food security. In January, the farmland trust released a report projecting that by 2050 more than 570,000 acres across the region could be lost to development as the Central California population explodes. Farmland losses due to housing, solar development, a warming climate, cyclical drought and ongoing farm water rationing to protect endangered fish, plus the state's signature transportation project - the High Speed Rail - are all issues the trust is trying to monitor.Well then. Let's look at those causes in detail. Housing: Caused by rich humans. In California, rich humans are almost all envirosatans. Solar development: Directly caused by envirosatans, and takes more acres than housing in these counties. Warming climate: Here's the century record for the counties mentioned above. It shows a cyclical pattern. The 30s were warm and the 90s were warm. Now we're heading down, as we did in the '40s. Not "a warming climate", just cycles.
Labels: Carbon Cult
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