feddit.org

-12 points

6 months ago

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.

report

[ - ]

Maggoty@lemmy.world

9 points

6 months ago

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?

report

[ - ]

-4 points

6 months ago

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.

report

[ - ]

Maggoty@lemmy.world

4 points

6 months ago

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

Then it wasn’t native was it?

report

[ - ]

-2 points

6 months ago

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.

report

[ - ]

Maggoty@lemmy.world

3 points

6 months ago

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.

report

[ - ]

0 points

6 months ago

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.

report