Tortoises Manhandled for Solar Splits Environmentalists It’s a
106-degree Fahrenheit day in the Mojave Desert. Heat devils
dance off chocolate-hued Clark Mountain on the horizon. Air-
conditioned cars zip along Interstate 15 toward Las Vegas. And
inside a chain-link pen covered to keep out predators are scores
of rare, threatened, sand-colored desert tortoises. Their
captivity helps show how complicated it is to combat climate
change without collateral damage. The foot-long (30- centimeter)
creatures are being removed from their burrows for a project to
harvest solar energy in the California desert. Trucks groan down
sunbaked roads, cranes pivot with 750-pound (340- kilogram)
mirrors and mechanical post-pounders drive steel pylons into the
packed desert floor, destroying their habitat. Construction of
such large-scale green-energy projects has splintered
environmental groups. When concern over global warming was at a
peak, national organizations such as the Sierra Club and the
Natural Resources Defense Council