Greetings All and especially Jill and Simon,
Finally starting to make headway in my backlog of work (summer holidays! Who needs 'em!) and can now afford to devote time to iberianatureforum backlog.
I made a tongue-in-cheek request elsewhere the other night for y’all to recommend me a thread that I could sink me teeth into and lo and behold! (or whatever the Darwinian equivalent would be – seek and ye shall find?), bumped into this one which is more than enough for me to have a bash at. Unless, of course, the powers-that-b. choose to brick up this particular thread in a misguided attempt to paint a rosy and harmonious virtual reality at the iberianatureforum.
So having got over my initial suspicion of a conspiracy plot hatched by you lot while I was resting, and chagrin at having been left out of iberianatureforum’s humdinger of a ruckus over gold courses, urban myths, freedom of speech and just about every other issue of human interest all rolled into one – the stuff soap operas (Sp. anyone?) are made of, have just discovered yet another advantage of heated debate over the internet: yours truly can enter the fray way after everyone’s gone home and deal cooly and calmly
with those issues which would normally make one’s blood boil in the heat of the moment.
And I find that with the advantage of being able to read all of the above exchanges in a detached light I am in almost total agreement with each and every one of the points raised (even many of the ones Juan made - but skipped over the skipper's ones, preferring to keep him out of it as he already has enough to deal with having a mutinous crew on board) along the way.
Obviously I'll be going over ground already trodden on by your exchanges, but at least in this first instalment, will try to stick to the remit of this thread -
Why 
the petition against more golf courses. Going back to the roots of Jill’s initial and very valid comments, some of which, such as the status of foreigners in Spain, and how to expound on mindless (or mind-numbing?) stats. to well-meaning persons, had also been broached on other threads by Simon, SueMac and others, one of the things we need to do - if it has not already been done - is present figures in easy-to-grasp terms.
Before going onto that crucial point, dealing briefly and in passing with the status of f. in Spain, and making humungous efforts not to enter into the always tricky areas of notions of territoriality, nationality, etc., however long I live here, however much I try to adapt or succeed in adapting myself to my chosen whatever, I myself will always be considered, and will always consider myself, a foreigner here. From a purely selfish viewpoint, never mind society and humanity at large, simply wishing the future well-being of the three people I most care for in this world (apart from myself), it turns out that they are Spanish by birth and by one of those quirks of Nature, I am actually, momentarily at least, responsible for their well-being, upbringing (for two of 'em) and financial stability. (Hope that doesn't sound too whatever it may sound, but it's very late and you know what I mean.) So surely I must be permitted, even by diehard Spanish patriots, to at least express my views on matters which might affect those same loved-ones' futures - even if I can't vote as to the kind of education or health services they might receive. But I digress.
On to the mindless stats. We are so used to politicians bandying numbers around and manipulating them to suit their needs (bottle half full?), that many of us just turn a deaf ear (Sp. anyone?) to them. Likewise, analysing their speech, one of the
gajes del oficio (En. anyone?) of politicians and public figures being their need to spin things one way or t’other, i.e. playing it up or down according to their current needs, one often finds them accusing others of doing and saying exactly what they themselves have previously said and done and being totally unaware of the Freudian slips they make in the process.
On the other hand, pressure groups tend to go over the top and their excessive use of headline-grabbing stats. only generates disbelief in those who would otherwise be genuinely concerned by the issues being dealt with. As always, and Simon rightly points it out, the truth is often somewhere in between.
So, when looking for meaningful stats. to use, I thought it useful to go straight to the horse’s mouth (Sp. anyone?) and let the pro-golf lobby speak for itself, and use their own mindless stats. to discredit their claims in justifying the ecology of gold courses. The fact that they actually officially address the issue does of course show their concern. I hasten to add that, I have nothing against golf per se, and have in a previous life (passing ref. only) enjoyed many a round (of golf – just in case you were thinking of punning) but the more I look into the issue from a purely ecological viewpoint, the more the whole thing dismays me, to say the least. Especially when we're dealing with gold courses projected under the circumstances we all know about...
http://www.randa.org/R and A (geddit?) is the world golfing authority and addresses the issue and their concerns extensively on their web site. And they refer to best practices in designing new golf courses. (As for existing ones, came across a humdinger in there somewhere, but have since been unable to find it, in which they mention the inconvenience of letting nature run riot and woodlands overgrowing onto the fairways through careless management.)
At the following web site, a link from the R&A,
https://www.bestcourseforgolf.org/images/water.pdf one of the best practices refers to this one which might be similar to an Andalusian gold course:
The Barwon Heads Golf Club, Victoria, Australia
The average rainfall for this heavily populated area of Australia is 600 mm
per year and restrictions on mains drinking water are common in summer,
when temperatures can reach the high 30s Centigrade. Water is available
from underground aquifers but, given the proximity of the course to the
sea, this water is very saline and cannot be used for irrigation. During
severe restrictions artificial watering is only permitted on the greens, and in
particularly dry periods only hand-held hoses may be used.
The cost
The greens, environmentally sensitive areas of the course and areas close to
housing are watered using higher quality water, but the tees, fairways and
approaches are watered using the recycled waste water. Using waste water in
this way has two main environmental benefits: it reduces the demand for
high quality drinking water and also reduces the amount of wastewater
being discharged into the ocean. There are also substantial cost savings:
recycled water costs £91 per 1,000 m3 compared to £343 per 1,000 m3 for
drinking standard water. The club uses about 40,000 m3 of recycled water
per year, a cost saving of £10,100 compared to using high quality potable
water.
The club has recently improved its environmental credentials further by
establishing a storm water harvesting scheme, which collects rainwater
from a nearby housing development and which is expected to yield 30,000
m3 of water per annum (46% of annual water requirements).
As most of us have readily admitted, the absolute figures mean nowt (can't remember that expression Nick used once) - at least to me, so I just underlined the ideas that seemed mind-boggling in themselves - presented in the context of best practices, don't forget, and they do seem unjustifiable from just about evry viewpoint - we won't even enter into non-iberianatureforum macro-issues such as the millions dying of thirst, etc. in other lands.
Ramblin' again - didn't mean to, but can't
off/log out or turn in without adding, although it's none of my business - but maybe it's the lateness of the hour (not mine - Bill Withers) - that I don't feel Simon's words (which I wish I had thought of myself and fully subscribe to), were meant as an attack on you at all, Jill. As I say, I agree more or less totally with what he said, would have said more or less the same - not quite so eloquently - and would be most upset if any of you had taken them as a personal attack.
Whatever the Darwinian eqivalent of a miracle is, as in "if Lisa and I can get to see eye to eye, on certain issues at least" (or is that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a t.?), I’m sure that Simon can get out of the corner Jill seems to have painted him into i.e. he certainly doesn’t need me to help him out – if anything I’m liable to get him even deeper into it - but again, from a purely selfish viewpoint, I would like this thread to continue open with as many contributions as poss. from you both (esp. as I agree with you both
and don't want this misunderstanding to stand between what has the potential to be meaningful debate), from all of you and from all newcomers.
Regs.
Technopat
