Here's a photo I snapped from my backyard just now. This is the Sonoran Desert in Phoenix, but much of the southwest is like this. Not exactly a dead ecosystem.
Here's an update on the upcoming desert bloom from a couple of days ago with a nice video included:
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/21/its-almost-time-for-c...
Aside from this the Anza-Borrego Desert(within the area in discussion here) has natural springs and oases, bighorn sheep which are endangered, there's also golden eagles, black-tailed jackrabbits, kit foxes, deer, falcons and dozens of different reptiles. I would highly recommend spending some time there before dismissing it as a "fucking desert."
edit: In case anyone else wonders, there would be a negative effect, as deserts are net carbon sinks.
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-...
Covering them with solar panels disrupts the environment and displaces it’s inhabitants.
Other biomes are worth preserving as they keep this planet habitable. I thought deserts do quite the opposite.
https://www.environmentalscience.org/deserts-ecosystems
> Even though the plant and animal species that exist in hot deserts are well-adapted to those environments, we know from studies that such organisms are treading a fine line over environmental tolerance; some are even at their limits, according to the IPCC (25).
>Both The Sahara and The Namib are extremely hot deserts and in recent years have experienced some of the hottest temperatures to date. Pakistan and Iran have also experienced record dry spells and high temperatures in the last decade. Even semi-arid desert climates are experiencing an increase in hot and dry spells, becoming more parched and experiencing wildfires in areas where scrub, brush and tree cover is more abundant.
...
>Evidence demonstrates that the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula alone show increased water vapor feedback, much higher sensitivity, and increased sensitivity in deserts to greenhouse gas emissions. Simply, deserts become hotter and drier during a warming climate with wider implications for the warming climate.
However I was not aware of this
>Many are not aware that deserts are a net carbon sink, providing some relief from the increase in greenhouse gases. This will be problematic while carbon emissions continue to increase, and world governments will need to do something about it in the future. The discovery was made when researching bacteria in the desert. Research suggests that bacteria located in massive aquifers beneath the sand and in the sands itself, are capturing carbon from the air. In theory, the aquifers could hold more than the entire global population of plant material at present at 20 billion metric tons (or 22 billion imperial/US tons) (33).
But my question was about deserts in general. The answer I was looking for was deserts being carbon sinks.
They occur naturally and life has adapted to them. From a conservation standpoint that's enough reason for me to keep them around.