A cash crop of insanity

The United States of America is truly an amazing place. Where else in the world would something like $25 billion be spent yearly to cultivate widely a crop that immediately after harvest is thrown directly into a landfill? A crop whose intensive and energetic cultivation is burning up our finite oil reserves, producing prodigious amounts of pollutants, creating near constant noise pollution all summer in our communities, and as an added bonus is making all of us fatter.

Of course the enthusiastic boosters of perfect lawns don’t want you to think about the downside of all those billions of acres of grass, most of which is apparently there simply to be looked at adoringly. Here is a laughable quote from the Lawn Care Association of Pennsylvania web site:

The U.S. Congress noted the benefits of grass and other vegetation in a 1990 Farm Bill: “…low growing dense perennial turfgrass sod in urban areas and communities can aid in reducing carbon dioxide missions, mitigating the heat island effect, and reducing energy consumption, thus contributing to efforts to reduce global warming trends.”

They then go on a couple paragraphs later to recommend: “Mow at the highest recommended height and mow often, never removing more than one-third of the left surface.”

Of course it is convenient for them to ignore the fact that frequent mowing of these “environmentally friendly” lawns will lead to a lot more carbon dioxide emissions than they are absorbing. The as-of-yet unregulated two-stroke engines that predominate the lawn care industry produce a huge amount of pollutants such as carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, in addition to the CO2. Small engines are now the worst polluters, contributing around 25% of the nation’s pollution from moving sources (including cars and trucks), according to the EPA.

This perversely has spawned “green lawn care” businesses that promise to give you your perfect lawn with environmentally friendly electric and biodiesel-fueled machines. Although these methods chip away at both the emissions and irritating ambient noise produced by lawn care, they don’t address the root idiocy: apparently, as much as we want to go “green,” you can’t ask us to give up our lawns (which only wear that color as a disguise).

The EPA tells us (as of 1996, apparently the last time this document was updated) that cleaner, greener lawn machines are on the way – although new emission standards will not actually be imposed for lawn equipment until 2011. Until then, we all should make lawn care more ecologically friendly by taking such important steps as avoiding gasoline spills when filling our massive mowers. That was originally meant as a sarcastic statement, but unbelievably, the EPA estimates 17 million gallons of gasoline per year (more than was spilled by the Valdez) are spilled just in the refueling of power lawn equipment. Wow.

Okay, farther down the document they finally mention the possibility of using a push mower and even eliminating part of the lawn by replacing it with trees, native plants, etc. That, frankly, would create a true CO2 sink – a garden of plants that don’t require petroleum in the form of carbon-emitting gasoline motors and fertilizers for maintenance.

And even the “green lawn” types promote electric equipment as opposed to strictly mechanical, even though people are routinely seen cutting a postage-stamp lawn with a power – even riding – mower. Undoubtedly some of the people doing this are then hopping in their SUV’s and driving to the gym so they can get in a real workout.

The cycle starts in the spring and continues all summer for lawnophiles: you call “TruGreen” Chemlawn to come on over and drench your kids’ play area thoroughly with pesticides that will end up as runoff into our lakes and rivers, fertilize (ditto), and then you water every 2-3 days, alternating with mowing every 2-3 days. Then you dump the grass clippings into garbage bags and have them taken far, far from your lawn.

Here’s a law we should have that all “personal freedom” (except of course when it comes to abortion and who you have sex with) conservatives would love to hate: if your lawn is less than 2000 square feet, no power mowers allowed. Not only would we dramatically reduce noise and air pollution, the latter far more dramatically than we will with the incremental raising of emission standards, but instead of being sent to permanent anoxic stasis in the landfill, a lot of grass clippings would stay right where they are needed to fertilize the living grass, reducing chemical pollution from all the gratuitous fertilizer.

And as a bonus, you could then skip your summer gym membership and supplement your mechanical mowing with more walking, which will further reduce pollution, save oil, and make you a little less fat at the end of the summer, all for free. And your neighbors will love you (even if you don’t know them).

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One Response to “A cash crop of insanity”

1. trevor madison says:

   July 18, 2009 at 7:02 pm

   Absolutely I agree! A mowed lawn is an ecological disaster. My dad has a wild lawn (meaning not a monoculture turf), and every time I mow it for him it seems like such a waste of time. Fighting something that should not be fought, and never winning the war. Screw the war against higher plant life forms. Let the grass overgrow into scrub and into forest. I live in Kentucky, and as our climate is, naturally the majority would be forest due to the ample amount of precipitation here. If you want a lawn move to the grasslands! Ah! Well, in the meantime, we can little by little reduce our lawns. No one needs a large lawn. Conversion to wild or gardened areas is where we need to be going. And the first of the two requires the tremendous effort of simply doing nothing. The gardening idea is our gift to nature. The lawn idea is our deaf, dumb, and blind mimic.