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
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.
Guess everyone should just stay home until the whole world is bland and homogeneous but equitable.
So to be clear, unless you’re playing golf at the hottest location on earth, you must stay home? Solid reasoning.
You can also swim at the pool, that sounds like fun
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.
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.
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?
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.
Then it wasn't native was it?
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.
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.
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.
... which is ironically a step towards the heat death of the universe
Wow, you managed to both misinterpret his dumb comment and misrepresent the second law of thermodynamics all in less than one sentence.
How shitty and bland is your home dude?
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.
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.
There is no amount of right for a golf course there. It's very existence is so wrong they cannot make it right.
If they built a McDonalds on the moon and called it “sustainable” you'd be out here defending it.
It's pretty easy to hate golf when all I do is chop at grass and hurt my shoulders...
It's easy to hate golf when it's one of the most ecologically wasteful sports in existence.
Based
Not being able to empathize with people is a failure of your imagination, not theirs.
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.
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.
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.
How else are they supposed to know whether its good to eat or not.
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.
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.
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.
So make traveling there more viable. I don't see an issue here tbh.
That kinda involves moving literal mountains, one of which is the highest point in the contiguous US