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The Earth Hates Your Lawn

This is a blurb and article set from Grist about the environmental destruction of lawns. So many of them are so dumb. They're not big enough to really do anything on and just serve as decorative. I used to do landscaping and the women I worked for told me that lawns were originally seen as a status symbol because you were showing that you had land you didn't have to farm to survive. Also, it gets into that whole "taming of nature" thing. Dumb.

SO LAWN, FAREWELL
The Earth Hates Your Lawn

We're sorry to keep harping on this, but: the lawns, people, the lawns. Quit with the lawns! There are 30 million acres of green lawn in the U.S. Some 54 million people mow their lawns each week in the summer, using 800 million gallons of gas a year. More than 5 percent of urban air pollution comes from gas-powered lawn widgets. Seventy million pounds of pesticide get spewed on home lawns, trees, and shrubs a year, polluting groundwater and sending phosphates and nitrates into lakes and streams, where they generate algae blooms that choke other plant life. Precious urban freshwater is being used by the millions of gallons -- in some cities two-thirds of available freshwater goes on lawns. Native plant species are being displaced. Birds are being poisoned. Angels are losing their wings. So quit it with the lawns, would you? Or at least go organic.

straight to the source: The Knoxville News Sentinel, Joan Lowy, 10 Aug 2004

Greener pastures -- the grass can be greener on your side of the fence

Posted by bluprnt at August 11, 2004 06:03 PM