Climate activists fill golf holes with cement after water ban exemption for golf greens

[IcyPeas]

Last edited Sun Aug 14, 2022, 01:38 PM - Edit history (1)

Climate activists in southern France have filled golf course holes with cement to protest against the exemption of golf greens from water bans amid the country's severe drought.

The group targeted sites l the city of Toulouse, calling golf the "leisure industry of the most privileged".

The exemption of golf greens has sparked controversy as 100 French villages are short of drinking water.

In a petition, the activists said the exemption showed that "economic madness takes precedence over ecological reason".

While residents cannot water their gardens or wash their cars in the worst-hit municipalities, golf courses have escaped the nationwide restrictions.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62532840

[Tetrachloride]

1. The activists damage sounds tiny as compared to

what they could have done.

this link should work

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62532840

[msongs]

2. Im with george carlin on golf courses nt

[alphafemale]

3. I am never in favor of filthy vandalism

If they want to pay fines all good.

But they probably don't have jobs let alone a bank account.

[Duppers]

7. Harsh criticism for Climate activists.

They were trying to make a good point imho.

[alphafemale]

21. What property of yours is someone allowed to destroy?

Just wondering.

[Lars39]

40. Golf courses getting watered while 100 villages

don’t have enough drinking water. That prioritization is screwed up.

[alphafemale]

43. m'kay go with the criminal behavior.

I won't stop you.

[Lars39]

45. Criminal is grass getting watered while people go thirsty.

[Sky Jewels]

51. This

All for a stupid game played by [redacted] in stupid clothing.

Golf sucks on many levels. I hope it dies out completely.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

41. nothing but a little plastic $5 cup is destroyed

and it's something golf courses think nothing of throwing away anyway.

Sure it's vandalism and they didn't have a 'right to do it', but it's really pretty minor.

Guarantee it was a lot cheaper to fix than it was cleaning the spray paint off the Federal Building in Portland back in 2020.

[alphafemale]

42. OK

I will come in and destroy something of yours worth just $5

Several times a day.

Sounds like you will be alright with that.

[canetoad]

9. LOL

Golf is a rich man's game and you're defending it. OK.

[alphafemale]

22. I am against destruction of anyone's property.

LOL

[ProfessorGAC]

48. No, It's Not

Over 75% of regularly playing golfers (in the US) have household incomes of 90k or less.
I don't care if you like golf, or don't, and I think we agree that the exemption for golf greens is shortsighted or the part of local government.
But, it's simply ancient history, & current myth, that golf is a rich person's game.

[Conjuay]

10. Jobs? Bank accounts?

I'm sure they would prefer drinking water to golf courses.

And if that was intended to be snarky, it just made you come off as the 'wreck everything that doesn't bring me in a buck' capitalist the world hates.

[alphafemale]

23. Don't destroy property.

If you do pay the fine.

[GoneOffShore]

13. Your fainting couch has been ordered.

[alphafemale]

24. Oh my!

I think vandalism is wrong!

[Thtwudbeme]

18. Filthy!!! Honey clutch those pearls!!!

Nt

[alphafemale]

25. Just pay the fine for vandalism.

It isn't hard.

[USALiberal]

26. Don't have jobs??? Classy!!!

[alphafemale]

28. Classier than destroying someone else's property.

Which should be fined or even get jail time.

I don't want some jerk punk destroying my stuff.

[Ponietz]

32. What do the fish, butterflies, native plants and trees do?

They have no legal rights. They are ‘property’. The fine owed to them is incalculable and unpayable. That’s the problem with the common law—it’s all about ownership—and that golf course is probably owned by an inchoate corporate entity, anyway. There’s a new paradigm.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

33. Just so you know they move the holes around on golf greens all the time

Making a new hole takes one person like 15 minutes and requires maybe $5 worth of materials.

[alphafemale]

37. Is it your property to fuq about with?

I didn't think so.

[Emile]

35. Did they pour wet cement into the holes or dry cement.

It takes water to harden cement. If the golf course watered the green and the dry powdered cement got wet, who is at fault?

[alphafemale]

38. The asshole who added any cement

Dear gawd is it still 1978?

[Emile]

46. This happened before in 1978? I missed that one.

[2naSalit]

4. K&R

[alphafemale]

5. Golf courses will need to adapt and find climate friendly alternatives.

I think it is a long boring game, but many people seem to enjoy it.

Recreation should be one of the first water sources shut off.
Including water parks and public and private pools.

[Duppers]

6. Indeed! 👍

Growing enough food for people and animals is more important than any form of recreation.

[canetoad]

11. Unlike golf

Pools and water parks are mostly patronized by inner suburban reisdents. That is, those who do not have access to beaches, lakes, GOLF COURSES, etc.

Priorities, pet. As we say in Australia.

[alphafemale]

27. It is still a huge waste of water.

Many things are going to need a shift in thinking in probably the next decade or so.

Waterscape fountain decorations, too. They loose a lot of water through evaporation.

[jimfields33]

36. Doesn't matter where the pools are located. They are a waste of water

Close them down at least all outside pools. Eventually we will have to ban pools at peoples homes as well. It’s not worth the destructive water waste. We’re In a water emergency and unnecessary pools must go.

[EX500rider]

47. "We're In a water emergency and unnecessary pools must go."

Depending where you live, eight billion gallons of water flow from Florida's springs each day. Most flows into the ocean to become saltwater.

[GoneOffShore]

14. Bread AND Roses. Though I agree about golf courses.

[twodogsbarking]

8. New cups are cut on a near daily basis depending on the course.

This does nothing.

[hatrack]

12. Should have covered whole greens . . .

.

[BumRushDaShow]

15. "This does nothing"

It actually "made the news" and we are reading about it from thousands of miles away, so it definitely did not do "nothing".

[twodogsbarking]

29. I am whelmed.

[BumRushDaShow]

30. But you actually clicked on the link and read that this happened

(which was probably the main goal here)

[twodogsbarking]

31. Filling in golf cups with concrete won't stop people from golfing.

[BumRushDaShow]

34. But it spurs discussion and brings it to the attention of the elected officials there

to make a change in the "exemptions".

This thing about golf courses has been an on-going issue for decades even here in the U.S. - particularly during times when the course is in a drought area.

Some solutions have been proffered over the years including having the courses watered via underground soakers vs sprinklers where there is more waste and runoff.

But otherwise, when you are demanding that people conserve water yet the water usage at a private facility has no such restriction, then you are going to set yourself up for some backlash, and certainly these concrete plugs are minor when someone can simply drive one of those Ukraine tractors across the place and tear up all the sod, and that's the end of that.

[alphafemale]

39. Laughing at you

OK

[BumRushDaShow]

16. Updated link below

Working link - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62532840

[NCjack]

17. French people, you know how to handle royalty.

[Marthe48]

19. Large lawns are an ecological nightmare

Whether a golf course, or 2 acres of grass around a 3 br home, the ground could be better used for trees, gardens, or left alone.

[mopinko]

20. i applaud this act of monkey wrenching.

maybe we should bring that back.
the 1st 'ecoterrorist' that i am aware came form my hometown. the fox, after the river.
he once took a couple 5 gal buckets of effluent from a. u.s. steel plant, somehow got into the ceo's office, and dumped them all over his white shag carpet.
he also used cement to plug up outflows from a soap plant. armor/dial.

the fox is now clean enough for recreation, and has bald eagles all along it's course.
no one ever got hurt, like these guys he made the papers.
some clever stunts like this might help move the ball.

[CoopersDad]

44. Tragedy of the commons. Golf Course property using the peoples water.

I reject any arguments that the golf course property is somehow sacrosanct because it's a group or business's "property".

"Property" should neither conceptually nor actually confer rights to groundwater, which should be treated as a public commons and managed as a commodity held in the public trust.

Carving out an exclusion for the golf courses needs to be rejected, and sometimes there needs to be consequences.

[hunter]

49. Here in the U.S.A. whoever drills the deepest well gets the water...

... even if entire towns go dry.

This goes on until the deepest wells go dry.

I don't know about France, but in California it's not the golf courses that are the biggest problem. I'd say it's the dairy industry, and in some places, the vineyards. But nobody wants to talk about that. Those industries are sacred.

[Sky Jewels]

50. Excellent!

If I were the Leader of the World golf would be illegal everywhere.

[gulliver]

52. Does the "activism" have some kind of democratic validity?

Activists who elect themselves to action are a curse. All they do is harm the cause of uniting to fight climate change. I mean, who voted for these folks to do what they did?