I think solar panels done right could actually help a desert though. Providing shade can allow some plants to thrive but most solar developers aren’t thinking about the ecology of a region.

I feel like sacrificing the deserts to save the rainforests is a trade worth making - but is such a trade even possible, or is it not that simple?

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/201...

There are important deserts and there are important grasslands and important forests. It seems a valid point that not all ecosystems are of equal importance.

Well that's a point of view that's never steered us wrong.

The only way we've done it is by eliminating everything in our path. We've been excellent at justifying eliminating entire ecosystems - when will we stop?

Probably right before we've justified eliminating entire countries of people with the weapons of death we've developed by extracting every last resource for the ground by digging it up.