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Comment by bcherry | Hacker News Reader

Golf courses account for probably not more than 0.5% of all human water usage in California annually.

Human water usage in CA is about 80% agricultural, 20% "urban". "Urban" covers all residential, (non-agricultural) commericial, landscaping, etc. Of the "Urban" usage, about 60% is residential, with indoor usage as the majority. Residential landscaping (lawns, pools, etc) uses at least 3 times as much as all commercial landscaping (golf courses, parks, etc).

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> Golf courses account for probably not more than 0.5% of all human water usage in California annually.

Great! That's half percent point gain of a life-constraining resource at the cost of a little non-essential entertainment for a small minority of people.

It's the same when you are trying to make a tight budget. First you cut off all the stupid impulse purchases. Then you figure out how much of each useful expense you are able to sacrifice. And only then you decide if you can or cannot afford one single hedonic purchase per month to keep up the morale.

Eh, I cut out Spotify (what, $9.99/month) and saved some $120/year. Woopty do. I cut out Starbucks ($2/day since I get regular coffee) and make coffee at home I save at least twice that. I cut out fast food lunches ($6/meal) and bring cheap cold cut sandwiches (no more than $2/meal with some veggies as a side) and I save close to $1k/year.

It's like profiling code. Sure there are some easy cheap gains, but when you find that 80% of your time is spent on task X you may want to focus your performance profiling on that section.

EDIT: I'd like to add, that in other parts of the country (I saw this in OK and GA, at least) golf is reasonably popular even amongst the lower middle class. I don't know how it is in CA (or what percentage of courses are accessible to that economic group), but it may not be just the rich elite that would lose out if you eliminated golf courses from the state.

The point remains. Water consumption will be cut down either voluntarily or by lack of availability. You cannot chose not to cut down your consumption, but you can choose what type of consumption to cut first.

Drink 10% less water and you will give yourself, in a couple of years, kidney failure. Skip shower each other day and you will give yourself a rancid bodily odor. Stop playing golf and you will give yourself... a bunch of free time to use however you like???

Why is it so hard to understand that?

Not much. My point wasn't that it oughtn't be considered, but that it's insignificant in the overall scheme due to how little water (as a percentage) it uses.

What part about profiling this like code or a budget is so difficult? If you have one area that's costing 80% of your resources, then reducing usage there by even 1% is more effective than a 100% cut to something that only uses 0.5% of your total resources.

I never said that by only cutting frivolous usage, the problem would be solved. If 80% is agricultural usage, then agricultural cannot be not part of the solution as well. But if people keep coming up with clever arguments for not cutting their favorite usage themselves and argue that others are at fault, nobody will do anything.

You are looking at the problem from the perspective of which cuts will bring the usage down faster. I am looking from the perspective of which cuts will produce less cost to society. Each point of view lets you highlight some aspect of the issue, and obscures many others by necessity.

I made no claim that it was a huge contributor. I use it as an example of needless waste. Only once we are willing to deal with the truly frivolous uses of water (golf, fountains etc) can we hope to deal with more utilitarian uses.

And I totally dismiss logic dictating that we must only deal with the largest and most contentious contributors to a problem before all others. That is only a delay tactic.

And I totally dismiss logic dictating that we must only deal with the largest and most contentious contributors to a problem before all others. That is only a delay tactic.

If I have a limited budget and am trying to reduce water use in California, pissing off a load of rich executives, judges and lawyers who can prove, in court, that their contribution to the problem is negligible, would not be my first move.

edit - and fountains? Are you the reincarnation of John Calvin?

Please excuse my ignorance in that area, but what is happening to water after it had been "used" for landscaping? Does it disappear from local ecosystem, like water that went into sewer, or does it stay locally and come back as fog/rain/dew/etc?

It depends on the landscaping and foliage. Basically, a healthy forest-type landscape will retain a good amount of the water. A grass field monoculture, a golf course, will evaporate it all into the air and, depending on how you irrigate, much can be lost before even hitting the ground.

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