This is completely manufacturerd outrage. Someone must be pushing this angle as there's been multiple stories on the same subject recently.

When those came up a glance at Google maps revealed green golf courses in the desert next to these solar farms that were of equal size, and vast expanses of empty desert surrounding them.

I'm generally in favor of rooftop solar as it has lots of benefits from being distributed and minimizing transmission. Deserts aren't actually that great for solar PV, but this is still astroturfed FUD.