Extinction Rebellion block holes on Spanish golf courses in protest
Golf courses across Spain have had their holes blocked in protest of the excessive water usage.
Climate activists announced Sunday that they had filled the holes on 10 golf courses throughout Spain to protest the sport's excessive water consumption during Europe's terrible drought.
Extinction Rebellion (XR) activists filled up the holes with cement and seedlings overnight in Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, the Basque Country, Navarra, and the Balearic Island of Ibiza to protest "the waste of water during one of Europe's worst droughts ever."
The group is notorious for stunts that warn of the dangers of the environment. In a statement, they underlined that "Golf has no place in a world without water."
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Some notes were left on the closed holes reading: "Alert: drought! Golf closed for climate justice."
Citing Spanish NGO Ecologists in Action, XR underlined that "Just one hole of a golf course consumes more than 100,000 liters of water a day to maintain the surrounding green."
"In Spain, 437 golf courses are irrigated every day," it added, alleging that they have "a consumption level higher than that of the populations of Madrid and Barcelona combined, for an entertainment enjoyed by barely 0.6 percent of the population."
The group denounced "the irresponsibility and sheer cynicism of letting this type of elitist pastime continue as Spain dries up and the rural world loses millions due to the lack of water for their crops."
According to experts, sections of Spain, the world's largest supplier of olive oil and a crucial supply of fruit and vegetables for Europe, are the driest they've been in a thousand years, with the protracted drought reducing reservoirs to half their usual capacity.