Humans altering the landscape enables civilization. Personally I'm more biased towards that than ecological conservatism.
We should maintain a balance of course. I suppose the real problem here is agreeing on what "balance" means.
We should maintain a balance of course. I suppose the real problem here is agreeing on what "balance" means.
Yet I think we can hopefully all agree that expending unbelievable quantities of energy in order to desalinate seawater and pump it uphill a thousand miles in order to turn a desert canyon into a lake for absolutely no good reason whatsoever does not qualify as "balance".
It doesn't even require high tech pv, just plain mirrors to make just plain heat for a large portion of the work.
And pumping water is not just a cost, it's also a battery, a hugely valuable thing we don't have enough of yet, which would enable more of the grid to live on renewables.
It's not all magic but it's not all impossible nor pointless either.
I don't even know if I agree or disagree with those as "good reasons". But also, we obviously don't all agree on them. Like, at all.