a lethal shade of green

Ah, the smell of summer.  Lilac? Peony? Roses? No, pesticides and gasoline. In neighborhoods everywhere, lawn care season is underway. Our preoccupation with green lawns is but another example of how our attention is manipulated. In my post purple hair, I brought up the metaphor of navigating a room with just a flashlight. The flashlight simultaneously reveals and conceals by directing our attention to what the light is pointed toward. We’ve been sold a homogenous green carpet from last frost to first frost as something to strive for. A multimillion dollar industry thrives on spotlighting the perfect green lawn. The real cost of how we achieve or maintain our patches of green is rendered immaterial because the industry doesn’t flicker light on it.

Do we consider the fossil fuel expense of lawns? Nope, although we burn over 60 million gallons of gas to keep our lawns trimmed (and this sum doesn’t even account for edgers, blowers or lawn services cruising the city), that particular detail falls outside the flashlight beam so we don’t think about it.

Shouldn’t it be disturbing that at over 32 million acres, the largest irrigated crop in America, is turf grass? Why are we willing to spend 29 billion dollars a year, averaging over $1,000 per household, on something that serves no purpose other than to fulfill a societal obligation that comes with home ownership?  You can’t eat it, sell it, weave it, wear it, climb it, smoke it or use it for shelter. Who’s spotlighting the pointless expense of lawn care?

Do we even know why we have lawns in the first place?

Over 800 million people worldwide do not have access to clean water, but we use over 50% of our residential water for landscaping. Apparently in the Midwest we’re burying our heads in our manicured grass about the inevitable water restrictions we’ll eventually have to abide.

And not only are we wasting water on something that naturally can’t survive here, we’re poisoning that water for the future through the chemical regimen used to achieve that impossibly green lawn. Who’s shedding light on how three times as much chemicals (67 million pounds yearly) are used on lawns per acre than on agriculture? Does the weed n’ feed label inform you, among other toxins, a constituent of Agent Orange- 2,4-D-is commonly used in lawn chemicals? A growing body of research links lawn chemicals to various cancers, endocrine disruption, infertility and birth defects. But why can’t we figure out on our own if it has ‘cide’ in its name, as in pesticide or herbicide, it means suicide and homicide for ourselves and future generations?

Isn’t it our responsibility to cultivate curiosity as to the consequences of our choices even if no one’s directing us to? Even if no one's shining a light on it?

I don’t want to engage an activity mindlessly just because it’s social convention. When I’ve learned all I can about something then I have the freedom to truly choose that thing or not. As much as I respect sheep, I don’t want to be one. Especially if sheepish compliance leads to slaughter.