Solar Development: Super Bloom or Super Bust for Desert Species?

“The desert — and many other biomes — don’t respond on our timescales,” said Hernandez, co-director of the Wild Energy Initiative through the UC Davis John Muir Institute. “If we want to understand them, we need to study them on the timescales they operate. Otherwise, it is like taking a photo of a moving train and calling it a shipping container. Racing to build renewable energy in places that have already been skinned of their biology makes sense — let’s not wait to put solar on existing rooftops. But in natural environments, we need to listen and observe first.”