Not that I will convince or change anyone, specially our open-minded industry friend, Guest, but I'll make a last pass at the subject matter.
First of all, I am an environmentalist and love wildlife nearly as much as I do golf and golf architecture. I've been to Alaska, several coutries in Africa, on both coasts of Central and South America, and numerous other places enjoying the land, wildlife, and the people.
I've also done considerable study in commercial real estate and golf course development, as well as maintenance. My background in this area, while by no means does it make me an expert, does allow me to look at the issues in a balanced manner.
Beyond the volumes of available research, an acid test on whether golf courses are harmful or beneficial to the environment ON BALANCE, is what most often happens when a club is built- the area around it flourishes. People build expensive homes near the course and raise their most cherished "possessions" there, THEIR KIDS.
Now, Mr. Guest, perhaps you think that these folks are stupid, selfish, or need to be saved by someone as enlightened as yourself. I guess that there is always a small possiblity that you and the relatively small number of your cohorts can be right, and the rest of us wrong, but my family and I will take our chances, thank you.
Consider also that many of the same folks who live around these golf courses are high earners/producers. They are the ones in the top 5 percentile who account for about 50% of federal income taxes (not FICA). You would be hard pressed to convince anyone outside of your small group that these people are ignorant, uneducated, or uncaring. After all, the government in seeking to expand the budget keeps telling us that the one correlation with wealth is education. Only one with a class envy ax to grind would buy into that.
I can understand how you would prefer to overlook a beautiful meadow from your porch instead somebody else's house or a commercial building. So would I. I wish that my 1/4 acre lot was a 3,000 acre ranch. My neighbors feel the same way, but I doubt that anyone of us would be receptive to the idea of razing our houses (or taking the financial loss of not developing the land) so that our neighbor (s) would enjoy that serene meadow.
I was recently involved in a zoning case where the surrounding landowners vehemently opposed a proposed manufactured home developmnet on part of a 200 acre open pasture. They liked the rural feeling of the area, and since they had theirs, they were less receptive to others sharing it. While I didn't have to go into a long explanation of property rights, I did suggest that if it was for the common good to maintain this property as undeveloped land, perhaps the homeowners and/or the town should purchase the property at the price that my client was being offered for the proposed use. Of course, this didn't make them like the zoning case any better, but at least got a few of them to think in more equitable terms. In fact, more than one person suggested that the town or someone else build a golf course on the site.
Our system works because of the recognition of property rights and individuality. As Tim has noted, if you wish to see real pollution, just visit socialist/govt./group oriented societies. If the Dos Pueblos in CA site is so valuable from an environmental standpoint, the appropriate govenrment jurisdictions should compensate the owners fully for the opportunity cost of not being able to develop that land for its highest use.
And Guest, I am not arguing that we need more golf courses. As you will see, the market will reach equilibrium through time, and mistakes will be punished and corrected. I am trying to make the point that in today's environmental climate, CPC or PB would not have been possible, and that would be a HUGE loss for many, many, many more people, golfers and non-golfers. I believe that over-regulation is the primary reason why we are not seeing courses like CPC, PB, PV, or NGLA being built today. Could someone get a permit today to remove 2 mm c.y. of material from a bay, lake, or marsh to build a Lido? Could the Stadium Course in Jacksonville be built in 2003? I think not.
Golfers and non-golfers alike, present and future, are being deprived of these treasures because of of the relatively few environmental WHACKOS and their junk science. Let these malcontents achieve their significance and self-worth elsewhere, perhaps in Central America where people dump their garbage, sewage, oil wastes, and everything imaginable right outside their door. But, where the kids play in open sewers and garbage heaps one is unlikely to find a quaint coffee house or a school of "higher learning". Happiness is not attained by whining and destroying, but by accomplishement and true problem solving. Who has a richer life and accomplishes more, a nun who works and lives in relative anonimity (until her last few years) among the poor to better their life, or a "preacher" who continuously remind us that life is unfair, that "his" people are getting screwed, and who leads a life that is totally inconsistent with what he preaches? In my book, we have far too few Mother Teresas, and a vulgar overabundance of Jesse Jacksons.
(I've already breached one of my New Year's resolutions- not to be pulled into one of these time consuming discussions with little chance of accomplishing anything. I resolve to do better in the future.)