Ep. 4 early release for paying subscribers
Interview with Kevin Emmerich of Basin & Range Watch
For paid subscribers, here’s episode 4 of my podcast! This version is the entire unedited conversation and clocks in at just over an hour. Links to audio & video below!
The public version will be released on Dec. 2. It is edited for clarity and is just under an hour.
Enjoy this 30 second teaser:
Kevin Emmerich is co-founder of Basin & Range Watch, a non-profit environmental organization based in southern Nevada that educates people about threats to public land from industrial development and energy extraction in the Mojave Desert and the Great Basin. These regions have been ground zero for "green energy" due to their plentiful sunlight, strong winds and lithium deposits.
Kevin enjoyed a career in the National Park Service for 20 years in seven different National Parks and Monuments, including Death Valley National Park since 1991 (now retired). He has also worked as a field biologist for research on desert species such as the Panamint Alligator Lizard, Desert Tortoise, and Mojave Fringe-toed Lizard.
I've been following Basin & Range Watch's work for over a decade, since I saw Kevin quoted in an LA Times article about a "green energy" project in California. I've interviewed both Kevin and the organization's co-founder Laura Cunningham a number of times for print and podcast. (Links below.) I appreciate not only their knowledge and experience, but also the love they both so clearly have for the Southwest, a love that I share. So when I had questions how the incoming Presidential election might affect "green energy" projects in this area, my first email was to Basin & Watch.
We don't go to Trump right away. First I asked Kevin to talk about the negative environmental effects of "green energy" development in the desert, and we mostly talked solar. Having laid the groundwork for why it's important to stop such projects, Kevin speculated on whether Trump will be worse, the same or better than Biden was and Harris was likely to be. ("Better" meaning less development.)
Audio & Video links:
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