Well they’ve also denied an oasis to the entire local ecosystem. They can claim that golf course ponds fulfill the same purpose all they want but nothing wants to live next to golf carts and flying golf balls if it’s big enough to recognize it. People think deserts are wastelands but in reality that water is even more critical because animals can’t just pop a mile down to the next spot. Then there’s the effect on local plants, they’re diverting all of this water and they probably killed the entire local plant system.
Sustainability also means taking care to build in places you won’t impact as much. There’s no world in which growing grass in a desert is sustainable. It doesn’t matter how much technology you throw at it unless you figure out how to get everything you need from the air itself.
radicalautonomy@lemmy.world 4 months ago
It doesn’t need to exist. It is a tourist location. That’s why this is here. People charter flights to fly out to there to see Death Valley and play golf at the lowest golf course on Earth. I’m not discontent with a golf course being there, more that people insist on going to see the hottest place in the world and the driest place in North America.
andyburke@fedia.io 4 months ago
Guess everyone should just stay home until the whole world is bland and homogeneous but equitable.
radicalautonomy@lemmy.world 4 months ago
If the most reasonable way you can devise to have fun is to charter a flight to the desert and play golf, then I daresay you have a pitifully weak imagination.
ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 4 months ago
You don’t care about the environment. You hate golf. And you picked a site that does everything right and works with the local ecology. It’s a VERY poor example.
Wolf314159@startrek.website 4 months ago
Not being able to empathize with people is a failure of your imagination, not theirs.
yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
So to be clear, unless you’re playing golf at the hottest location on earth, you must stay home? Solid reasoning. Everyone must play the dumbest game of all time or else do absolutely nothing.
evranch@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
You can also swim at the pool, that sounds like fun
Crowfiend@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I mean people don’t have to just stay home to get close to a golf course that isn’t *literally siphoning the only source of sustainance for hundreds of miles."
There’s a golf course down the street from me, on a main road to one of two local hospitals, surely you can find one within the nearest 10mi and if you can’t? You probably have bigger things to worry about than swinging a club at a 1inch sphere at your feet.
If you’re visiting a country that doesn’t have enough grass to sustain pissing on a tree, you’re going to the wrong places for golf.
rockstarmode@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I’m not sure I understand? Did you mean county?
It sounds like this course is located at a natural oasis fed by a natural spring. If the course wasn’t there the water would probably feed some plant life and a bit of wildlife. With proper management it’s likely that their water use is more efficient than it would have been naturally. It isn’t unusual for resource aware golf courses to actually improve biodiversity in a region while being water consumption neutral.
Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
… which is ironically a step towards the heat death of the universe
yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
Wow, you managed to both misinterpret his dumb comment and misrepresent the second law of thermodynamics all in less than one sentence.
BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee 4 months ago
How shitty and bland is your home dude?
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Yes. Those first few months of covid showed what we could accomplish if people got their heads of out their asses. Problem is, people like smelling their own shit too much.
Fungah@lemmy.world 4 months ago
How else are they supposed to know whether its good to eat or not.
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Wouldn’t something like a botanical garden bring even a more diverse range of people therefore more of three issues you have with?
If anything a golf course limits the people there while providing this oasis that’s far more protected.
radicalautonomy@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I never mentioned a botanical garden. The fact is that there are fewer than 15,000 people in that whole county, and almost 90% of the people who live in that town have jobs in accommodations, food service, or retail. The area was a curiosity, and then capitalism got a hold of it.
SchmidtGenetics@lemmy.world 4 months ago
You said surely there are better uses, there are, but wouldn’t they bring in more traffic conversely though? No matter what you do, it would be a tourist destination almost definitely. So why not do something to effectively limit the the people that would go there, while also being a pseudo reserve.
Luminocta@lemmy.world 4 months ago
So make traveling there more viable. I don’t see an issue here tbh.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 4 months ago
That kinda involves moving literal mountains, one of which is the highest point in the contiguous US