Water Hazards
The novel The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk portrays a fractured American society defined in part by water, or the lack thereof. The Bay Area, and the erstwhile-San Francisco in particular, is portrayed as a garden, an oasis of simple living compared to the stark, militaristic, consumptive lifestyle of the Stewards and the religious Millennialists down South.
It's a nice thought, but . . .
We spent the late afternoon yesterday at the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park. It was sunny, a beautiful day with everything in bloom, and we headed right off to the turtle pond.
The water was about a foot lower than normal, so low that the fish were having a hard time not breaching the surface involuntarily, so low that they couldn't help but stir up mud from the bottom. It didn't feel right.
Today I walked through another section of the park, from Lloyd's Lake down to 6th Avenue and Fulton. The waterfall and the creek from the pond at Storybrook Cross down towards the lake were practically bare, just mud and stagnant pools.
I'm not sure if this is a result of enforced conservation, or an actual shortage. But it put into stark contrast the problem we face. It isn't just a question of enough water for humans. We are competing with flowers and animals as well; for example, the demands of agriculture and the population of Southern California have contributed to a collapse of breeding grounds for salmon in California. I wouldn't think that would be a good thing in the long run.
It raises the question, how do we effectively conserve while our population continues to grow? How do we balance?
For starters, abolish golf. It's ridiculous. In Mexico, new golf course developments at 'luxury retirement communities' are sucking up an overabundance of water in a dry environment, while the locals are scrounging for every drop they can get. It is an elitist game--George Carlin has a brilliant take--and it is not worth the expense of water used to alter the environment to make a 'pristine' golf course.
Is there a place for the game in our world? Absolutely. Is it worth diverting vast amounts of water to make a golf course look pretty in, say, the fragile ecosystem of a desert? No, and I'm willing to extend that conclusion to any sport, safe in the knowledge that no one is ever going to ask me to cast the deciding vote on implementing a dry field policy . I'm just saying, when we look at how we spend resources, do we really want to say we poured millions of gallons of water into making some place unnaturally green for the sheer sake of hitting a small white ball into a hole, taking the ball out of that hole and then hitting it towards another hole, ad nauseum?
It's a nice thought, but . . .
We spent the late afternoon yesterday at the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park. It was sunny, a beautiful day with everything in bloom, and we headed right off to the turtle pond.
The water was about a foot lower than normal, so low that the fish were having a hard time not breaching the surface involuntarily, so low that they couldn't help but stir up mud from the bottom. It didn't feel right.
Today I walked through another section of the park, from Lloyd's Lake down to 6th Avenue and Fulton. The waterfall and the creek from the pond at Storybrook Cross down towards the lake were practically bare, just mud and stagnant pools.
I'm not sure if this is a result of enforced conservation, or an actual shortage. But it put into stark contrast the problem we face. It isn't just a question of enough water for humans. We are competing with flowers and animals as well; for example, the demands of agriculture and the population of Southern California have contributed to a collapse of breeding grounds for salmon in California. I wouldn't think that would be a good thing in the long run.
It raises the question, how do we effectively conserve while our population continues to grow? How do we balance?
For starters, abolish golf. It's ridiculous. In Mexico, new golf course developments at 'luxury retirement communities' are sucking up an overabundance of water in a dry environment, while the locals are scrounging for every drop they can get. It is an elitist game--George Carlin has a brilliant take--and it is not worth the expense of water used to alter the environment to make a 'pristine' golf course.
Is there a place for the game in our world? Absolutely. Is it worth diverting vast amounts of water to make a golf course look pretty in, say, the fragile ecosystem of a desert? No, and I'm willing to extend that conclusion to any sport, safe in the knowledge that no one is ever going to ask me to cast the deciding vote on implementing a dry field policy . I'm just saying, when we look at how we spend resources, do we really want to say we poured millions of gallons of water into making some place unnaturally green for the sheer sake of hitting a small white ball into a hole, taking the ball out of that hole and then hitting it towards another hole, ad nauseum?
Labels: conservation, environment, golf, water
posted by Devin at 6:42 PM
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