Causes.com
| 12.12.22
Six Ways Golf Courses Hurt the Environment
Do you think golf courses fit into the vision of a greener future?
- Underneath the rolling, manicured hills of any golf course lies an ugly truth: they are environmental blights diverting water, poisoning rivers, utilizing exorbitant amounts of energy, and monopolizing green spaces.
- There are over two million acres of golf courses in the U.S. and nearly 40,000 golf courses worldwide. Golf courses privatize what could more fruitfully be used as a public resource: water, electricity, and prime land.
Six Ways Golf Courses Are Terrible for the Environment and Society
Golf Courses Waste an Excessive Amount of Water
- Many golf courses don’t irrigate with recycled water, using up a huge percentage of the county or municipality’s freshwater. Over nine billion liters of water are used in the U.S. each year, simply to maintain the aesthetically pleasing appearance of golf courses.
- In Las Vegas, which deals with chronic water scarcity, 28 of the top 100 water users were golf courses in a 2003 water-use survey.
- In Salt Lake Country, Utah, nine million gallons of water are used per day to keep 30 golf courses blindingly green.
Golf Courses Damage Developing Countries
- A UN Environment Programme reported that golf tourism, particularly in developing countries, rapidly depletes freshwater resources and contributes to water scarcity and saline intrusion into groundwater.
- In Thailand, just one golf course utilizes as much water as could be used by 60,000 rural villagers in the same region.
Golf Courses Contribute to Deforestation
- Forests are cleared to make room for pastoral landscapes mimicking nature.
- Abbie Richards, writing in EuroNews, says:
"There is a common misconception that to play golf is to be in nature. That is false. Golf courses are not natural — they are nature-themed amusement parks.”
Golf Courses Hurt Wildlife
- Golf courses impede wildlife corridors and reduce wild animals' ability to forage.
- With all the toxins used on the grass, experts question whether the land can be considered a healthy source of food anymore.
Golf Courses Privatize Land that Could be Used as a Public Good or Housing
- California housing activists have been suggesting that some of the land that holds the thousand golf courses in the state be converted into affordable housing, especially considering that many of these courses are operating at massive financial losses.
- Golf courses are typically located on desirable tracts of land in appealing areas. Why not make these spaces public parks, nature reserves, or trails that the public can use and enjoy?
Golf Courses Release Pesticides and Chemicals into the Environment
- Greenways are heavily treated to keep them artificially bright and appealing, which entails many pesticides and chemicals. In 1991, more than 50,000 pounds of pesticides were being used on golf courses — more than in the agricultural sector by acre.
- A study by the Environmental Journal found that 95% of herbicides eventually reach a destination other than their target species. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently banned paraquat, a popular herbicide used on golf courses, but that is only one of the hundreds used.
- 2,4-D, declared a possible human carcinogen, is still used on golf courses and was one of the active ingredients in Agent Orange, the chemical that decimated thousands during the Vietnam War.
Golf Courses Damage Fragile Waterway Ecosystems
- Pesticides and chemicals run off into water bodies like rivers and ponds, leading to eutrophication and algal blooms that can destroy entire ecosystems in a short span of time.
- Eutrophication is a process that happens in bodies of water, where algae growth blooms from too many nutrients, ultimately suffocating the animals living in the region. It creates dead zones where there's a lack of oxygen for anything to survive.
Do you support golf courses? Do you think the land could be put to better use? Share your thoughts.
—Emma Kansiz
(Photo Credits: iStock/simonkr)
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People's access to potable water has become a challenge in many and in many more areas of he world, and will continue to stress plant, animal and human life as precipitation patterns and watersheds continue to shift due to the accelerating rate of global warming.
Keeping people alive and protecting local biospheres as best we can, will have to take precedence over protecting adult playgrounds.
There may be places that can handle the stress of golf courses without affecting local watersheds or chemically damaging local biospheres. Go for it - and be prepared to lose it if and when conditions change!
Absolutely not. It's a stupid game for the well-off. It takes large swathes of the best land away from it natural state. They pollute all the adjacent fresh water with toxic run-off of high nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides.
We know that grassy lawns are bad for the environment and a big drain on water usage without providing much carbon capture.
Therefore, I think golf courses are not part of a truly green future.
However, I think if golf courses had to include a certain percentage of forested or other more carbon-friendly areas as part of their real estate, they might be able to contribute better to the community they're in. It has to start with standards and maybe local regulations.
I'm sure wealthy golf course owners might not like this, but it's the only way I think these facilities should be built or improved in the future.
The fertilizing of golf courses puts nitrogen and others chemicals in steam, rivers, waters and aquifers of your drinking water. That not talking about other pollutants.
I am not a golfer but I can already hear my family & friends that golf complain, but then none of them believe climate change is real or a danger.
I'd love for each community to put this up for a vote.
They can stay IF we're able to make them sustainable. If not, the majority should go to make room for native fauna & flora.
Another thing the tree huggers want to remove. It happens that a proper designed golf course uses less land than most city parks.
People enjoy getting out in the fresh air and enjoying the sun and exercise. I have only went golfing one time and took the wife with me. I shot a 72 and then we went on to the second hole. We walked and i carried the bag the entire 18 holes. It was great exercise. Wildlife on a golf course is a no no. When you water grass it goes on the grass and back into the ground to be reused.
Yani ben pek düşünmüyorum.
Golf courses are a joke. They waste water, apply tons of pesticides, fungicies and fertilizers that end up polluting groundwater and diverting important water resources to keep grass green. Ridiculous. For the wealthy and not the average person.
Considering the golf courses in golf's birthplace, Scotland, we can see that golf courses can be varied as they develop around the natural resources of the local environment. Golf courses don't need to have planted green grass to look like those golf courses in Scotland. Greater imagination can help develop a greater variety of golf courses for all to enjoy and not damage the environment in the meantime.
The ugly truth about water in the west. It's not a theory, it's happening and it's very serious
https://apple.news/AvEgDSI6RR8GkTM9PFEn64w
I feel that golf courses hurt the environment because of noise etc Do your own research ...... whether I could be right or wrong ....we need to stop Disinformation please save .......our rhinos the best way you can..... wildlife ....No wars missiles bombs. Stop world government control of tracks. Etc. Please Do not be Deceived nor compromised please 🙏
Golf courses are not the only problem. Individual homeowners who want their lawns to look like golf courses and use fertilizers and pesticides to get them that way.
If golf course designers can come up with a way to make the golf courses less water hogs. Other wise they are going to have to go the way of the dinosaurs.
I think the woke endanger me
Oh and the above doesn't even mention the pollution caused by lost gold balls. The estimate is between 2-5 million balls in the ocean off the coast of the pebble beach course in California alone.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-golf-usopen-pollution/pebble-beach-aims-to-keep-harmful-golf-balls-out-of-ocean-idUSKCN1TE005
absolutely not. golf courses are a non essential product. people do not "need" golf courses to survive. the only people who benefit from golf courses are the owners and they only care about the profit they make, never mind the decrease of water for drinking, for humans and animals.
Golf courses provide avenues for popular recreation. While they are not "green", it makes more sense to focus on things like the oil and energy industries whose damage drastically outweighs that of golf courses. After we've take care of the real climate destroyers, we can worry about golf.
Golf, like football has a hypnotic hold on many people but it's a sport that needs to wind down and become a thing of the past. Harm far greater than good.
What a waste of resoures so you can chase a little ball around. This is one thing destroying our planet.
They use too much water.
If golf courses can be redesigned to signicantly reduce their negative impacts, then fine. Otherwise, convert them to meadow lands.
Golf courses are an abomination of the elite and a waste of precious water and land resources. They bring unnatural grass and foliage that damages the local ecosystem.