A golf course less than eight miles away from the hottest point on the entire planet. ( lemmy.world )

It opened in 1931 and underwent a major renovation in 1997. Apparently, the water usage is sustainable (see below), but it still doesn't excuse the fact, in my mind, that continuing to support the upkeep of a green-ass golf course at the edge of Death Valley shows how out-of-whack its patrons are with the changing climate.

"In an area as hot and dry as Death Valley, balancing water usage with conservation requires significant planning. Furnace Creek and its namesake resort exist in their location because natural spring water flows from nearby mountain ranges to create an oasis. By routing the water from one point to others, the resort’s goal is to use the same molecules of water for several purposes. The spring-fed water is first used at the Inn to irrigate gardens and supply the swimming pool which was designed with a flow-through system that minimizes chemical use. That water then continues downhill to the Ranch where it fills the ponds on the golf course, providing habitat for local and migratory wildlife. The water in the ponds then irrigates the golf course." - How Xanterra’s Furnace Creek Resort is Sustainable, greenlodgingnews.com

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/44405ba7-3a51-4925-9fc3-862eea544cc0.png

Freefall ,

Kinda neat what is possible for humans to do, shame it is only doable by and for the rich.

Norbynorwest ,

Water for landscaping use makes up a microscopic fraction of CA's freshwater use. If you think you're taking a stand against waste by complaining about golf courses, you're not looking at the big picture.

JohnOliver ,
@JohnOliver@feddit.dk avatar

Would you mind sharing that over at !topview ?

This is amazing and crazy!

partial_accumen ,

its namesake resort exist in their location because natural spring water flows from nearby mountain ranges to create an oasis.

If its irrigated from a natural spring then wouldn't that water is coming out of the ground and will shortly evaporate in Death Valley whether there is a golf course there or not?

Are you suggesting capturing the spring water and hauling it out of Death Valley for some reason? Are you proposing something else for the water?

Maggoty ,

Desert ecosystems do exist. I guarantee you the water was not just being wasted. If nothing else there's the aquifers and those are getting drawn down pretty fast these days. Anyone capturing water in the Southwest is contributing to the water crisis there.

Infynis ,
@Infynis@midwest.social avatar

This place sounds awesome. I still don't think I'd want to go to Death Valley, but they've clearly built something incredible

yeahiknow3 ,

Or they just hired a really good marketing team and now a bunch of people who should know better think that an air conditioned compound with a swimming pool and a golf course at the hottest place on earth can be anything other than ecologically reprehensible.

Vailliant ,

I see nothing wrong with this, at least they conserve the water, which would normally run off. They probably use graded slopes for water retention. Seems way better then 90% of golf courses, but I dont know the specifics

Maggoty ,

It's supposed to run off. Humans aren't the only things that need water.

Bye ,

Golf is actually a sport that should be perfectly playable without grass. Like use different grades of rocks.

radicalautonomy OP ,
@radicalautonomy@lemmy.world avatar

Or a disc golf course. I have played golf before and, yes, it is nice to get out into nature, and yes a squarely-hit golf ball feels nice. But it's no more satisfying a feeling than bowling a strike or spiking a volleyball. There are so many ways to get the feelgoods that don't require flagrant water waste the way golf courses do.

yeahiknow3 ,

But isn’t disc golf often played by people with a functional frontal cortex?

ArcaneSlime ,

Define functional I guess, in my area it's exclusively people who listen to too much Dave Mathews Band.

PhlubbaDubba ,

At this point it's probably more because grass and dirt is the safest surface for all the old fudds that make up most of the playerbase to fall down on.

Pyr_Pressure ,

I thought it would be interesting to have a negative space golf course, where the entire thing is hard packed sand, except for the rough which is slightly looser sand, and instead of sand traps you have Grass traps, where it's just a small area with uncut 6-12" tall grass that you need to shoot out of.

HonkTonkWoman ,

You should find a way to always have angry turkeys in the grass traps, kinda like the alligators.

Ooh… and you could do a hole like that crazy island one from Tin Cup, but instead of an island, make a drunk on a jet ski dragging an inter tube behind it.

Wolf314159 ,

I've never really understood why golf courses always needs to look the same. Wouldn't they be more exciting if they reflected the local ecology. I'd think it would be more interesting to play a desert course, a swamp course, beach course, forest course, bog course, etc. Then again, golf isn't exactly known for being an adventurous sport.

TheBat ,
@TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

Snow golf.

Snolf.

Bringer of avalanches.

lud ,

That already exists.

Pretty sure they use orange balls instead of white.

Takumidesh ,

This is basically disc golf.

Take an existing park/ site/ property / walking trail / hiking trail, and slap some baskets and a few tees (concrete optional in a ~3'x5' square for the 'tee', but a marked off piece of dirt is also acceptable)

Course is in a forest? Better dodge the trees! The course near me encircles soccer fields and a walking path, another one near me follows along a creek.

There are courses that go under power lines and some that are nested away in between buildings.

yeahiknow3 , (edited )

Even cooler would be playing golf without the clubs and just going for a walk instead like a non-psychopath.

Golf is actually a sport

Nope.

andyburke ,
@andyburke@fedia.io avatar

You are mad and calling this dystopic but ... it's specifically been made to work in its location? Isn't this exactly what we want our environmental changes to support?

Shouldn't this be a sort of utopic example? "Look what we can do if we think carefully about interacting with our environment.'

If it's all lies or something, bring the evidence and I will be there supporting you. Otherwise, what is it you want, exactly?

radicalautonomy OP ,
@radicalautonomy@lemmy.world avatar

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 because there's more to do that just say, "Hoo boy, sure is pretty and hot and pretty hot." It just adds to an ever-worsening climate. And, I know...corporations, not people, are mostly responsible for climate change...I get it. But surely there are better uses for this runoff water than a golf course.

andyburke ,
@andyburke@fedia.io avatar

Guess everyone should just stay home until the whole world is bland and homogeneous but equitable.

Sonotsugipaa ,
@Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

... which is ironically a step towards the heat death of the universe

yeahiknow3 ,

Wow, you managed to both misinterpret his dumb comment and misrepresent the second law of thermodynamics all in less than one sentence.

radicalautonomy OP ,
@radicalautonomy@lemmy.world avatar

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 ,

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.

Entropywins ,

It's pretty easy to hate golf when all I do is chop at grass and hurt my shoulders...

ThatWeirdGuy1001 ,
@ThatWeirdGuy1001@lemmy.world avatar

It's easy to hate golf when it's one of the most ecologically wasteful sports in existence.

yeahiknow3 , (edited )

If they built a McDonalds on the moon and called it “sustainable” you'd be out here defending it.

TheBat ,
@TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

You hate golf.

Based

mojofrododojo ,

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the moderator]

    •
    Maggoty ,

    There is no amount of right for a golf course there. It's very existence is so wrong they cannot make it right.

    Wolf314159 ,

    Not being able to empathize with people is a failure of your imagination, not theirs.

    yeahiknow3 ,

    Correct. I cannot imagine how installing an air conditioned compound with a swimming pool and a golf course in the middle of the desert could be anything other than ecologically disastrous. But then again, I tend to be skeptical of marketing claims — unlike you, apparently.

    zbyte64 ,

    I'll crap down anyone's throat if it means my life is just a little bit more comfortable. Thank you for empathizing with my plight and arguing that a golf course is more important than public green spaces.

    yeahiknow3 , (edited )

    So to be clear, unless you’re playing golf at the hottest location on earth, you must stay home? Solid reasoning.

    evranch ,

    You can also swim at the pool, that sounds like fun

    Crowfiend ,

    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 ,

    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.

    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.

    Maggoty ,

    Yup, sure, it increases biodiversity by using foreign plants in a monoculture. That grass wasn't there before, so it's more diverse now you see?

    rockstarmode ,

    Golf courses aren't just grass, they plant all sorts of other vegetation, much of it native. This supports native wildlife that wouldn't otherwise be there.

    Have you ever actually been to a responsibly managed golf course? Many in the southwest US are run this way, and tons more are moving in that direction to reduce water use.

    Maggoty ,

    This supports native wildlife that wouldn't otherwise be there.

    Then it wasn't native was it?

    rockstarmode ,

    You must be trolling.

    Birds, insects, and reptiles are common even in the desert. A species can be native to an ecosystem or region, without naturally occuring in an small locality.

    If humans manage water more efficiently than nature would have in this locality, it stands to reason that the resulting local ecosystem would be able to attract and support more native wildlife.

    This is observable and provable for golf courses which manage their resources with a focus on limiting their natural resource use and increasing local biodiversity.

    You just hate golf courses, which is fine, but you sound pretty uninformed.

    Maggoty ,

    Yes, that's the point. But if you divert the water then you've killed them. Bringing in different ones isn't a value add, it's just green washing marketing. You cannot introduce a human structure to manage water more efficiently than nature. The local ecosystem has spent thousands of years developing around that water source.

    It's thinking like yours that got us into the position of having to remove dams and concrete river channels.

    rockstarmode ,

    You cannot introduce a human structure to manage water more efficiently than nature

    If you actually believe this then there's nothing anyone can say to help you.

    If a naturally occuring spring runs directly into a wide flat area in the middle of the Mojave desert, then it doesn't naturally reabsorb into the ground as the hard pack just makes it sit on the surface. Since the water is shallow and sitting on the surface, it evaporates instead of being used to water native plants or support native animals.

    The golf course in question is not a dam, it's putting the already available water to use more efficiently. Growing non-native grass, but also native plant species, and providing native insects and animals a way to utilize that water before it would have otherwise evaporated.

    Dams destroy native ecosystems by flooding and displacing them, or removing available water downstream. The golf course in question does none of those things.

    "Nature is perfect and humans are capable of nothing but destroying it" is a great take BTW. You could have saved a few people some time by leading with that.

    Duamerthrax ,

    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 ,

    How else are they supposed to know whether its good to eat or not.

    BruceTwarzen ,

    How shitty and bland is your home dude?

    SchmidtGenetics ,

    Wouldn’t something like a botanical garden bring even a more diverse range of people therefore more of the issues you have with?

    If anything a golf course limits the people there while providing this oasis that’s far more protected.

    radicalautonomy OP ,
    @radicalautonomy@lemmy.world avatar

    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 ,

    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 ,

    So make traveling there more viable. I don't see an issue here tbh.

    AngryCommieKender ,

    That kinda involves moving literal mountains, one of which is the highest point in the contiguous US

    JJROKCZ ,

    OP is just one of those people that are mad golf courses exist at all and think we can’t make it as a species until we do away with the sport of golf

    TheBat ,
    @TheBat@lemmy.world avatar

    Again, based

    douglasg14b ,
    @douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

    They're looking to manufacture outrage by the sounds of it.

    Maggoty ,

    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.

    pennomi ,

    This doesn’t sound like a dystopia to me. Having a sustainable oasis in the middle of the desert is actually pretty badass.

    Lost_My_Mind ,

    No no no. You don't get it. Forget the fact that this place reuses water to conserve massive amounts of pipe fed water as most other golf coarses do. Forget the vast amounts of water they use, vs the sustainable model this coarse uses.

    The point is, we're supposed to be MAD!!! RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!!!

    PanArab ,

    Agreed

    yeahiknow3 ,

    They could build a Starbucks in the rainforest and as long as they claim it’s somewhat “sustainable” you’d probably endorse it.

    pennomi ,

    False equivalency. There’s a huge difference between a rainforest and a desert.

    yeahiknow3 ,

    Not really. Visiting either is ecologically destructive and should probably be illegal.

    PanArab ,

    After thousands of years of my ancestors living in a desert, I guess we have to move now. Europe looks nice.

    /s I would never move to Europe.

    yeahiknow3 ,

    I encourage you in particular to live there.

    PanArab ,

    Thanks, I was thinking of leaving, needed your approval.

    Maggoty ,

    That's not what we're talking about. This isn't part of a city in a well situated area. It's a resort in a national park. An area that's supposed to be preserved.

    Emmie ,
    @Emmie@lemm.ee avatar

    Why do you hate Europe?

    PanArab ,

    I don't. Europe has fertile lands and ample water. But I don't want to contribute to the rising anti-immigrant sentiments when I have no valid reason to emigrate.

    Maggoty ,

    It was a sustainable oasis all on it's own. Now it's just a golf course.

    Holzkohlen ,

    If we could financially exploit the desert we'd have companies pushing climate change along. Zero thoughts as to how many people die because of it. Capitalism does not care about people, only profit.

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