As a staunch supporter and defender of President Obama I'm flabbergasted with what I consider his ton-deafness when it comes to a looming environmental disaster in southern California.
As I sit in my living room looking at my brown lawn while watching the President on TV chasing balls on a lush green lawn I have one thing to say to President Obama. Simply put my message to the president is; "It's the drought stupid!"
Playing golf on water drenched golf courses in the middle of a dry and extremely over heated desert (90 degrees in the winter?) is not only politically incorrect but environmentally abusive. My suggestion to President Obama is, if you want to play golf, go to Hawaii.
President Obama decamped to Palm Springs over the weekend to do what many others do in the desert resort community: play golf.
But the president quickly found himself in a political sand trap.
The problem, critics say, is that it takes a lot of water to keep the Coachella Valley's 123 golf courses green and California is in the midst of a severe drought. Cities and towns are struggling with a statewide mandatory 25% reduction in water use.
"Everything President Obama does in California makes a huge statement. I'd say that's the wrong statement to make," said Sara Aminzadeh, director of the California Coastkeeper Alliance. "We need our leaders at all levels to show this is a shared sacrifice and to think about how their behavior can reflect that."
The Coachella Valley's golf courses suck up about 37 billion gallons of water annually, enough to fill about 56,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. The golf industry used about a quarter of the total groundwater in the Coachella Valley Water District in 2012 and 2013.
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