never mind

Should We Solar Panel the Sahara Desert? (bbc.co.uk). A bunch of experts weigh in. No one questions the insane premise. Why does everything have to revolve around a magic monoculture/all-eggs-in-one-basket ("Manhattan project" style) techno-jihad against planet earth? And BTW, what about asking the Africans (you know, the people who own the territory in question?) first, before discussing it behind their backs? (I love how the underlying assumption is "We Westerners can just agree up front on this grand thing we're going to do, and then get approval from indigenous peoples later.") Never mind that. What about rethinking your lifestyle and restructuring your economic reality in such a way that it doesn't require paving the freakin' Sahara desert with solar panels in the first place? But in any case: Why wouldn't you want to just make the Sahara into a lovely (cactus) garden, say? Aren't plants a much better way to harvest sunlight (and CO2) than solar panels?

blogorrhea