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California Begins To Rip Up Lawns Because "The Whole Damn State [Is] Out Of Water"
In early May, California’s water regulators backed a series of emergency measures proposed in an Executive Order issued by Governor Jerry Brown. The extraordinary conservation effort comes amid a historic drought, that some climatologists say will reach “Dust Bowl” proportions before all is said and done.
Recapping, the order called for a 25% reduction in overall water usage beginning on June 1 — so, last Monday. The state reduced its consumption by 13.5% in April (compared to 2013), suggesting residents will need to redouble their efforts if Brown’s targets are to prove realistic. While some communities have attempted to cast conservation as the “cool” thing to do, other localities say that in the absence of significant financial resources, the cuts simply aren’t feasible. AP has more:
April's best conservers included Santa Rosa, a city of 170,000 people north of San Francisco, which reported a 32 percent drop in April compared to the same month in 2013. The city offered a host of programs to achieve savings such as paying residents to reduce 52 football fields' worth of lawn and giving away 50,000 low-flush toilets since 2007.
Saved water "is the cheapest water you can find," said David Guhin, water director for Santa Rosa. "It's gotten to where lawns are uncool."
Cool or no, many communities are still falling far short.
"Fifty-thousand toilets? Really? We don't have that kind of money," said Alan Tandy, city manager of Bakersfield, where water use increased by 1 percent in the latest state tally.
If Tandy thinks he doesn’t have money to throw ‘down the toilet’ (so to speak) now, things could get materially worse if Bakersfield (which, as a side note, has a deal with Chevron to distribute water generated from fracking to local farmers) is unable to hit state-mandated targets. Here’s AP again:
Starting this month, each community has a mandatory water reduction target, with some ordered to cut back as much as 36 percent.
Water districts missing their targets face potential fines of up to $10,000 a day once June numbers are in, although a far more likely outcome will be state-ordered changes in local regulations, like toughening limits on lawn-watering.
Of course one way to ensure that Californians cut back on watering their lawns is to simply encourage households to remove the grass altogether and replace it with something that needs far less water — like rocks.
As The Guardian reports, grass has no real place in California anyway and is only present because Californians have never had to live without it and because the state's citizens exhibit a peculiar nostalgia for the time they spent as British monarchs.
Via The Guardian:
There is pressure to take things one step further and turn to lawns. More precisely, to the ripping out of them.
In his executive order, Brown called for the replacement of 50m sq ft of lawns with “drought-tolerant landscapes”, a goal to be achieved with the help of local subsidies and partial funding from the state’s water department.
“Over 50% of household water usage is outdoors,” said Stephanie Pincetl, a professor and director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at University of California, Los Angeles.
California’s love for lawns is wholly unsuited to the state’s dry climate, Pincetl said, describing the attachment as an “inherited historic aesthetic” that comes straight out of the British Empire.
“Turf serves no functional purpose other than it looks good,” said Bob Muir of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWDSC), which provides water to nearly 19 million Californians.
The MWDSC recently voted to increase its conservation programme to a whopping $450m over two years, with money taking the form of rebates on turf removal operations and incentives on efficient faucets.
Californians are taking the leap by the tens of thousands. Almost one year into that two-year period, Muir said, half of the money already spent (around $44m out of $88m) has been allocated to residents and businesses undertaking turf removal.
Replacing one's lawn with rocks and cacti has become so popular that it's spawned a growth industry.
Turf Terminators, a Los Angeles-based company created last July, has ripped up 5,000 lawns in less than a year, according to its head of business development, Andrew Farrell. The company started with three employees. It now has 565 full-timers.
But even with help from a turf-terminating team from design to completion, ripping up your lawn is expensive.
In Los Angeles, if you combine two separate subsidies from the city ($1.75 per sq ft), and the MWDSC ($2 per sq ft), you will most likely still have to put in some cash of your own.
According to Farrell, the average turf-removal job costs between $5 and $8 per sq ft. This means someone on a budget with a modest front yard of 400 sq ft would still have to pay $500 out of their own pocket for a $2,000 operation, if they went for one of the cheaper options.
If they wanted to go for something slightly more elaborate, the same resident would have to put in $1,700 of their own money for a $3,200 operation.
In fact, Terf Terminators advertises the fact that you may be able to have your lawn dug up for free, by simply signing over your "water rebate" (taxpayer-funded grass removal subsidy) to the company. Here's how it works (from the official Terf Terminators website):
Here’s how Turf Terminators can afford to offer its services for free:
- Turf Terminators has consulted regional, municipal, and local water authorities, including utilities and state agencies to understand various turf removal rebate programs offered in Southern California.
- Turf Terminators utilizes water rebates from state water authorities that are offered per square foot of turf that is removed and replaced.
- Customers assign their rights to state-offered water rebates over to Turf Terminators.
- Turf Terminators’ contractors transform customers’ lawns and campuses while abiding by certain landscape requirements dictated by state, municipal and local authorities.
- Turf Terminators’ in-house laborers, relationships with local nurseries and suppliers and access to wholesale prices allow it to provide landscaping services at a low cost.
- Government water rebates cover the cost of Turf Terminators’ services, which it provides WITHOUT CHARGING ITS CUSTOMERS ANYTHING.
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And while Turf Terminators and its nearly 600 new full-time employees (including, we assume, the guy in the raindrop suit shown above) tear up lawns, and while residents skimp on showers, the state's lawmakers are doing what lawmakers in the US do best: nothing.
Via LA Times:
Farrmers have watched fields turn fallow. Residents have skipped showers and ripped up lawns. But four years into California's epic drought, Congress is status quo: gridlocked.
The state's splintered congressional delegation — despite its size and influence — has been stymied by fundamental disagreements over the causes of the drought and the role of the federal government in mitigating its consequences.
If anything, recent fights have only hardened positions, with both sides questioning each other's motives.
Ultimately, the state now hopes Senator Dianne Feinstein can help to break the stalemate. We'll leave you with the following, from Congressman Devin Nunes:
"If they don't do something soon they're going to get the whole damn state out of water."
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Lawns are a fucking waste of water anyway (a PERFECT metaphor for American waste & idiocracy) ... This is AGITporn...
The real waste is in agraculture. Resadential water use accounts for about 10% of all water in California, so a 25% cutback will net 2.5% savings overall. Agraculture accounts for 80% of overall water usage, so a 10% cut by farmers would net 3 times the savings.
There are almost 1 million acres of almond trees being grown in the desert here. A tree that needs to have wet roots 365 days a year. A single almond takes a gallon of water to produce.
The trouble is the mega farmers have bought the politicians.
Lawns are stupid though.....
Tear out lawns.
Plant almond trees instead.
Two birds, one stone.
More trees everywhere are always good news.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwJaELXadKo
yah, our love for Green is just a tradition we took from the Brits...
...what a load of crap.
sort of like our love for water, river, lakes, waterfalls.......it's just tradition. It has nothing to do with the inherent association between water, plants and life sustainability!!!
When the water crisis finally finally hits
And California's bloated Real Estate market reflects
That reality...
The moon is steady
Far away
Here
the surface
ripples...
Americans begin to rip up federal reserve notes
https://youtu.be/Gzj4v76lcC8
Landscapers are smiling ear to ear.... :D
Lawn Care people are crying ;(
California has water. The whole drought is hoax. Talk about a conspiracy.
I used to have a hydro-acupuncture machine in my bathroom. I had to run around underneath it so I could get wet. Then one day I drilled some more holes in it and now I have a nice shower head.
By the way, if you have a water-saving toilet and you have to flush the damn thing FOUR TIMES every time you use it, does it still save water? If I ever build a new house with one of them so-called "Water Saving Toilets" in it, I'm gonna put a tap and a hose in the same room. Mr Crapper and friends got it right the first time. The new ones are, errrr, shit.
It looks like California is well on its way of becoming a world class shithole... Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. I sure hope that increasing California population (illegals and all...) to more than that of the entire Canada, was worth it !
Green lawns in the desert are not sustainable. If it can't grow there naturally with the rainfall, it probably shouldn't be there.
According to this logic 80% of the population in Kawleefornya should be exterminated ? not a bad idea really, but when will Gov moonbeam realize the swimming pools are far more of an issue than green lawns ?
Kawleefornya is now reaching the end of the line in many ways, not just water. although a big negative to be sure. They need more illegal aliens to give free stuff to and that will surely solve all their ills for the last 30 yeares of completle stupidity, corruption and greed. Or the big quake might arrive and solve all of Kawleefornyas problems. Either way it is a breeding ground of ignorance and criminals on many levels. Good riddance !
Just make sure you replace the lawn with a surface that is cooler. Ask any construction worker in a remote location. The rain mainly falls around the construction site - where the trees are - not on the site - where there is hot, bare ground and hot concrete. Hot air holds more moisture than cold air. So go ahead, dig up all your lawns. The rain will tend to fall near the few remaining green sites. Cities tend to create their own micro-weather systems. Research that.
Re "If it can't grow there naturally with the rainfall, it probably shouldn't be there": That INCLUDES PEOPLE.
Figures from my city (non-US) state that 85% of water consumption is for industrial use, leaving 15% for domestic use. So you could halve your home use and only reduce water use by 7.5% over all. How long till the population grows by 7.5%, thereby negating all your sacrifice? But all politicians are pro-growth.
Isn't it amazing how all proposed solutions involve making your cages smaller? It takes brains to build dams, wells, pipelines, solar powered desalination plants (because the sun isn't enough) and whatever other infrastructure that is needed to provide water to a populace. It takes balls to just admit that a certain area is saturated with people and should not grow any further. But any idiot can tell people to "use less water" and increase prices and bring out more draconian laws. I assume that the water shortages will discourage people from settling there and so real-estate prices will go down ... No? ...NO???
Lawns started out as a form of conspicuous consumption. Before power tools only the wealthy could afford to have legions of workers trimming grass so a well tended lawn was as much a sign of wealth as heavy gold jewelry. It continues to some degree now, in Phoenix or Palm Springs what apartment complex won't advertise itself as a classy place by the ubiquitous pond and waterfall? Power mowers and illegal immigrants have lowered the status appeal a lot but studies have shown that most humans will choose as an ideal landscape one with a mix of grass and shade, a good view and clean water, kind of like a nice place to set up camp on the African savanna. It may take a gallon of water to produce a single almond but that same gallon put on a lawn just produces lawn clippings.
My lawn is getting a bit crispy but the shower water is growing some fine tomatoes!
This motherfucking dipshit was trying to get me to MEET him, last week, so he could presumably thump a BIBLE across my head...
Now ~ You dipshit motherfucking IDIOTS are UPVOTING an idiot who presumes to grow ALMOND TREES in DOWNTOWN BALTIMORE???
Why the fuck do I even waste my time here anymore?
<-- Because you dig the awesome comments
<-- Because pro-Kremlin propaganda is like visual cocaine
If your stats are as accurate as your spelling . . .
Because his typos must mean that his message is false, right?. Although we obviously need agriculture, he's right that there are some crops which we don't need right now becuase of their excessive water consumption.
Who says that California needs agriculture. Lots of land east of the Mississippi, there is zero need for California to grow anything.
His message is bullshit.
Roughly California water usage is;
50% Envormental
40% Agricultural
10% Urban
So the last two (agricultural and urban) make up the all of Californias water for HUMAN CONSUMPTION, where he gets his 80% number and parades it around without the proper context, getting all the huffpo mouth breathers asthma attacks.
I have got to ask, what the fuck should California do with water designated for human use? Fill swiming pools?
California has had nearly no new water projects for 50 years and the population has grown substantially during that time, yet now ag is to blame for Californias woes. Fuck that. Sure the mega corporate farms are fucking assholes, yet there is a solution, DO NOT BUY THEIR FUCKING PRODUCTS. A case can be made for California farming, it has not been outsourced (yet, which is a good thing), unlike Californias other products, eg. Apple designed in California built in China.
Cut off you nose to spite your face.
It's your figures that are misleading. Environmental "usage" is not consumption. It just means water in the rivers and lakes. So the real number is 80% ag and 20% for everyone else as far as consumption.
http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108
No shit sherlock, you can do math and read. golfclap
Where does the water flow to from the Sacramento delta?
From your link (psst, I said the same thing),
"Water in California is shared across three main sectors.
Statewide, average water use is roughly 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban."
Don't forget to brush your tooth.
From your link:
"More than half of California’s environmental water use occurs in rivers along the state’s north coast. These waters are largely isolated from major agricultural and urban areas and cannot be used for other purposes."
BS. Just look at the limitations and conflict for water rights in Sonoma county (Russian River and Gualala River). It is disingenuous to say that the waters are "largely isolated from major agricultural and urban areas" when grape growers would take all they could if it weren't for the legal restrictions that are already in place on the north coast.
Heaven forbid a North Coast river empties into the ocean.
Spelling is bad, stats are accurate.
California’s 2013 almond acreage is estimated at 940,000 acres http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/Fruits_and_Nuts/201405almac.pdf
Approximately nine million acres of farmland in California are irrigated, representing roughly 80% of all human water use.... and 10% urban. http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108
You are getting closer.
Why would you pay someone to take it out? Nature will do it for free...
That is what Tyler is asking us. Whois: Turf Terminators
Turf Terminators is one of the new wave of buisnesses who's sole source of income is from government handouts. just like a lot of banks, anything related to climate change research and Tesla.
.GOV will pay you to take it out, but they pay zippo if nature does it.
Most likely, they charge you if you let nature do it because it won't meet their codes for required landscaping. In the land of the free, you have restricted landscaping options. Dead lawns are ugly and not allowed.
Why would you pay someone to take it out? Nature will do it for free...
that was my question...if you're in a hurry, just cover it with cardboard (biodegradable) or black plastic (not biodegradable but effective).
Where did you get your facts?
Do you really think 80% of all California water goes to ag? If so you are a fucking dumb ass with no critical thinking skills, which is what all your masters want... Another usefull idiot.
http://www.waterplan.water.ca.gov/docs/cwpu2013/Final/04_Vol1_Ch03_Ca_Wa...
Try page 3-34, learn to think for yourself, fucking asshole.
Mighty aggressive name calling...are you an almond farmer perhaps?
I sighted my sources. Key phrase: Human water use. The state has redefined how it measures use, now
"Enviromental" counts, which means they count the water left in or released into the rivers lakes etc. for habitat as water "used".
I hope you are not a smelt fisherman too, then I might have really pissed you off....
Nope.com not much of a fisherman either, but I did catch a fish today. lol
The state has used the same measurments for 15+ years.
This is fight club. Not pissed either.
Agreed. Lively debates are healthy.
Back to the article. Perhaps the point is better expressed as: "In California agraculture consumes between 40% and 80% of usable water, depending on defininitions, yet is only responsable for roughly 2% of the economy. It light of this it seems not to make sense to focus conservation efforts on residential instead of agracultural use."
California has the most Byzantine water laws around which explains much of the problem. Interstate 5 has long stretches of orchards dead from lack of water. This is a huge loss of investment that theoretically could have been prevented by taking water from the alfalfa fields and putting it on the almonds. Everyone grows alfalfa but about 80% of the world's almonds come from California. It didn't happen because it's illegal to divert those water allocations from the hay fields. The farmers can use it or lose it but they can't sell it. The lawns would have plenty of water if urban water districts could pay the farmers to leave their fields fallow. The price per acrefoot of water out of the tap is a tad higher than out of the irrigation canals.
In a way it reminds me of all the other misallocations of resources created by .GOVs laws.
The lion's share of Californias economy is based on toys for adults, things that blow stuff up, and services (what am I missing?). Agriculture makes up two percent of Californias economy but I contend agriculture is the most important industry for the state and for the country, with a year round growing season it makes sense to base an important industry, ag, in California. Now we could go all Amish and state, "Green lawns in the desert are not sustainable. If it can't grow there naturally with the rainfall, it probably shouldn't be there."
Well that would be true if humans were still rubbing sticks together for fire. Humans have added more tools to their tool box and have built reservoirs and aqueducts for centuries. Californians have done no such things for 50 years and now have to pay the piper.
In light of this it shows how as a society we are fucked up and this is a crisis of our own doing. Could the ag industry conserve more? Sure, will that lead to higher prices? Yes it will. Will the "conserving" by the ag industry make much of a difference in the long run? Probably not.
In the short term conservation is ideal, but without addressing the problem (larger population demands, no new infrastructure, no rain) this conversation only feeds to divide the people. Agriculture is not the problem neither is flushing the toilet, or grass, or whateverthefuck we are supose to hate ourselves for doing.
I agree that is does not make sense to focus on urban use, you cannot squeeze blood out of a turnip. Realistically if .guv institutes 25% cuts in ag water use (as they do for urban use) we all will pay more and probably get less. So this is more about the big players dividing up the people (ag vs. urban, liberty vs. control) to gain more money and power and deflect blame.
1. The drought is over. A mega El Nino will bring above avergae precipitation to Califiornia in the next year.
But... never let a crisis go to waste, especially if you want to attack the ancient water rights doctrine of prior appropriation, and replace it with a commie water czar.
2. Turf lawns actually do many things: They cool the air, reduce dust and particulate air pollution, provide oxygen, and keep soil healthy.
3. Plants need water. Take water away from farmers and pay a lot more for food. Brings a new meaning to the phrase, "No free lunch."
4. im a god .. not
And the California agriculture has zero flavor.
I recall being in Vegas for the first time a couple of decades ago. Everyone at the table was from the East Coast, when we drank the orange juice we asked the waitress if the orange juice was concentrate or watered down or otherwise fucked.
"Yo, this orange juice is fucked up" (in nicer terms)
"You guys from Florida or the East Coast in general?"
"Yes"
"You are drinking California orange juice".
Everytime I go to the West Coast and have to eat California fruits and vegetables... they are like eating cardboard.
I will further add that once I left the USA and moved to Europe... I now consider the Spanish fruits and produce to be the best.
Check your stats. That isn't true, nearly 40% of water in CA goes out to sea as it is protecting fish and preventing seawater intrusion Who needs food anyway, you just to to the store to get it.
YA make the farmers give up their water and stop growing crops. It's time the market Kalifornia cornered on some of those crops that should never have been grown there go back to regions they can be grown in naturally. Plus we get to watch the 8th largest world economy fall at the same time without all those exports. Where will they get all the money for the welfare/sanctuary cities then?
We are going to receive a first hand education in CA., on the Tragedy of the Commons.
I'll take food over lawns any day of the week and twice on Sunday, including almonds.
Eliminate HAARP....Water problems fixed.
RIPS
Obviously, you a zero clue, from where Southern California gets its water,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Water_Project
You're the one with a zero clue. HAARP arrays on Soccoro and Guadelupe Islands consistently broke up the electrical foundation of every Eastern Pacific hurricane last year, allowing zero Pacific moisture to reach the Caifornia mainland. This year, the ocean responded to HAARP mainpulation by heating up more than 30% over normal El Nino predictions. HAARP won't be able to stop the hurricanes this year. Already we have had the earliest named tropical depression in the EP and the earliest hurricane. Califironia is going to go from too dry to too wet in no time at all. Cue the news stories of mudslides and flood victims in the next few months.
Cheers McCormick.
Funny thing is a canadian socialist i know was going to get a gun to kill invading climate refugees storming the canadian border for water...i laughed my fucking ass off...and left.
RIPS
HAARP really has arrays on those two islands? Sheesh. One is in the Sea of Cortez and the other quite a bit west of the Baja mainland. What reason do they "officially" give for this? I'm surprised the Mexicans let us on those islands.
My letter to the water company...(they mailed a notice directing us to their website to file appeals and write objections that were to be replied to in writing, so far no reply)
Dear Apple Valley Ranchos Water Company:
For the moment, ignoring the political idiocy within Sacramento, where water is flushed out to sea and billions of gallons are proposed to be used to save half a dozen trout...
http://www.westsideconnect.com/opinion/guest_columns/water-alliance-government-ordering-billion-gallons-of-water-for-six/article_35c2d376-df16-11e4-a347-3326ba293ded.html
and "Statewide, average water use is roughly 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban. However, the percentage of water use by sector varies dramatically across regions and between wet and dry years. Some of the water used by each of these sectors returns to rivers and groundwater basins, and can be used again."
http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108
You are mandated to reduce the 10% used by consumers by 28%. It's almost laughable; the absurdity of our government is at every level.
Your notice is unclear as to "average residential customer usage", are you talking about the average for all AVR customers, or the average for each customer based on their particular 2013 water usage?
If it is based on each individual customer, it would patently unfair to those of us that minimize water use. I believe I averaged around 7 CCF per billing during 2013. A 28% reduction means I would only be allowed 5.04 CCF per billing. We don't have a lawn, we don't water trees, and we don't wash our cars at home.
If it is based on AVR's total customer average, who is going to be able to fact-check your claims? You are a quasi-government corporation and, at least to me, you have little credibility. Will you make your data available for public review?
Also, you are forbidden to charge any more than the actual cost of the water. Courts are already striking down attempts at tiered rates, and will most likely rule against surcharges as well.
http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_27954116/california-drought-court-rules-tiered-water-rates-violate
http://www.lao.ca.gov/1996/120196_prop_218/understanding_prop218_1296.html
And, by the way, the 'Appeal Form' that was supposed to be on your website is not to be found...
Two years ago when it looked like we might get rationing once again I made sure my lawn was VERY green. Our 30% reduction doesn't hurt a bit.
Not here. We just had 5 days of rain in a row. Sure the lawn gets a little "tannish" in July or August and browns a little, but we don't water like some of our neighbors do.
It's all on well water anyway. Nice living in a humid-subtropical climate right on the border with a humid continental climate. Nice mix of weather and all 4 seasons.
I hate mowing my lawn, because it involves nasty really sweaty and dirty work here down in GA. I have no sprinklers, because I have bermuda grass, but this grass comes to life late in the spring allowing all sorts of weeds to take root before it wakes up!; i've nuked my lawn 2 times already, and I'm still fighting weeds.
Some dads that I know enjoy mowing their lawns as it validates them as men; I've been mowing lawns since I was 13, and I'm done. I hate the sort of grass that needs to be mowed, I prefer the type of grass that you can snip, trim, dry, cure and then smoke!
SH
Some ground covers only grow a few inches and so don't need mowing. Sometimes they have pretty little, tiny flowers too. Unfortunately, I don't know the name of the plant because I hate gardening. You should investigate.
I'm with you brother....I prefer to have a yard full of so-called "weeds" any day of the week, which harbors wilflife and improves soil fertility and gradually turns into a beautiful forest, than to waste time, energy, and gasoline pushing a fucking loud ass mower. Why the fuck do people do this retarded shit? I have refused to do it my entire adult life, and been outcast and alienated and classified by certain self-righteous pricks on occasions for that and other reasons, but in the end will be vindicated as usual. In many ways, humanity has been going in the wrong damn direction, and grass mowing is definitely one of those things that needs to cease completely.
Instead of grass I'm all for putting a hemp plantation on every "lawn." Humanity will have finally evolved when we compete on how tall our grass grows, rather than how short we cut it.
Pawns with Lawns
by Mickey Z. / March 1st, 2009
The single most irrigated crop in the United States is…(drum roll please) lawn. Yep, 40 million acres of lawn exist across the Land of Denial and Americans collectively spend about $40 billion on seed, sod, and chemicals each year. And then there’s all that water. If you include golf courses, lawns in America cover an area roughly the size of New York State and require 238 gallons of (usually drinking-quality) water per person, per day. According to the EPA, nearly a third of all residential water use in the US goes toward what is euphemistically known as “landscaping.”
We have become a nation of pawns with lawns. Food comes from the drive-thru, entertainment is televised, the concept of play exists on hand-held computers, democracy is a reality show every four years, and that tiny parcel of land we allegedly share with some bailed out bank is inevitably set aside to be a lawn.
As described by Ted Steinberg, author of American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn, when it comes to lawns, social and ecological factors often work in coordination. “Perfection became a commodity of post-World War II prefabricated housing such as Levittown, NY, in the late 1940s,” writes Steinberg. “Mowing became a priority of the bylaws of such communities.”
Lawn mowers produce several types of pollutants, including ozone precursors, carbon dioxide, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (classified as probable carcinogens by the CDC). In fact, operating a typical gasoline mower produces as much polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as driving a car roughly 95 miles. Since some folks are legally required to maintain a lawn (more about that shortly), here’s a suggestion or two: human-powered mowers or try using your bicycle.
Besides the air and noise pollution of mechanized mowers, there’s another form of toxicity directly related to America’s lawn addiction. “Lawns use ten times as many chemicals per acre as industrial farmland,” writes Heather Coburn Flores, author of Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden And Your Neighborhood into a Community. “These pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides run off into our groundwater and evaporate into our air, causing widespread pollution and global warming, and greatly increasing our risk of cancer, heart disease, and birth defects.”
“If the Bill of Rights contains no guarantee that a citizen shall be secure against lethal poisons distributed either by private individuals or by public officials,” wrote Rachel Carson almost five decades ago, “it is surely because our forefathers…could conceive of no such problem.”
We now produce pesticides at a rate more than 13,000 times faster than we did when Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962. The EPA considers 30% of all insecticides, 60% of all herbicides, and 90% of all fungicides to be carcinogenic, yet Americans spend about $7 billion on 21,000 different pesticide products each year. “Prior to World War II, annual worldwide use of pesticides ran right around zero,” says author Derrick Jensen. “By now it’s 500 billion tons, increasing every year.” As a result, about 860 Americans suffer from pesticide poisoning every single day; that’s almost 315,000 cases per year.
As mentioned above, maintaining a noxious and unproductive lawn isn’t just a simple case of one-size-fits-all conformity in the face all logic and evidence; it’s often the law.
In October 2008, for example, Joseph Prudente of Beacon Woods, Florida, was sentenced to jail for failing to sod his lawn as required by the local homeowner covenants. Before you label Mr. Prudente a modern day insurrectionist, take note that the reason he failed to live up to his suburban obligation was predictable: he couldn’t afford to replace his sprinklers when they broke. “It’s a sad situation,” said Bob Ryan, Beacon Woods Homeowners Association board president. “But in the end, I have to say he brought it upon himself.”
I’m guessing Mr. Ryan has never heard of Food Not Lawns.
Imagine, as the folks at Food Not Lawns do, each house not with a lawn but instead with a small organic “Victory” garden from which the family is fed. Imagine those without a lawn joining their local community garden to re-connect and grow their own. Or perhaps you’d like to imagine them engaging in some green graffiti and/or seed bombing.
(For the uninitiated, seed bombs are “compressed balls of soil and compost that have been impregnated with wildflower seeds. Jettisoned onto barren, abandoned, or otherwise inhospitable land, including construction sites and abandoned lots.” Liz Christy—who started the “Green Guerillas” in 1973—coined the alternative term, seed grenades. Smaller versions are commonly called seed balls. No matter what you call them, seed bombs are part of the ever-increasing international trend of guerilla gardening and you can find kindred spirits here.)
“The vast expanse of forever-green American lawn is not only the most resource intensive agricultural crop in the world,” writes Tobias Policha in Green Anarchy, “but also an obscene icon to our arrogant privilege and total alienation from a life in harmony with nature.”
The sterile lawn—complete with its requisite sprinkler, chemical cocktail, bug zapper, and “keep off the grass” sign—is an ideal symbol for America’s cookie cutter culture. Lawns, writes Ted Steinberg, are “an instrument of planned homogeneity.” He asks: “What better way to conform than to make your front yard look precisely like Mr. Smith’s next door?”
To which we must reply: Fuck homogeneity and fuck conformity.
Why don’t more people step away from the coast-to-coast mall mentality? Once reason is the looming Green Scare, a term which refers to “the federal government’s expanding prosecution efforts against animal liberation and ecological activists, drawing parallels to the “Red Scares” of the 1910’s and 1950s.”
The answer to this tactic, as always, is more solidarity. More of us need to embrace ideas like dumpster diving, off the grid living, wwoofing, billboard liberation, monkey wrenching, radical love, bartering, freeganism, veganism, transition towns, and other forms of the DIY ethic. We need organic vegetable gardens, not lawns. We need two wheels, not four. We need food not bombs. We need immediate courageous collective direct action, not “hope and change.” We need comrades, not pawns with lawns. And we need it all now.
Mickey Z. is the author of the recently released Bizarro novel, CPR for Dummies, and can be found on the Web at MickeyZ.net. Read other articles by Mickey.
Everybody who enjoys lawn maintenance and lawn equipment mechanical maintenance, upvote this post.
If you hate mowing your lawn, and get fucking sick of replacing belts and cleaning carburetors down vote. I downvote my own post.
"Replacing one's lawn with rocks"
is it most stupid thing?
Krugman said that broken windows is good.
it is the same - useless work...
Why not just cut water to fields of marijuana?
it's so fucking stupid
Replacing one's lawn with rocks
Make your former lawn a Palestinian Ammo Dump for the Summer of Recovery part six (or is that seven).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_stone-throwing
Replace cool flora with hot rocks?
If you like your desert then you can keep your desert.
OH, so thats why all the stars are , have been listing and trying to sell their Hollywood Hills, Bev Hills and Cayuga Canyon, and
LA homes ( $ 1.2-$5 million past two years. )
recycle your pee
hugs,
the people of dune
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_of_the_Dune_universe#Stillsuit
First fucking SENSIBLE comment I've read here (besides my own, above, that only gets junked because CH1 & SMG have figured out who I am)...
PEACE
Francis!
Who else?... The red arrows ATTEST to the honor!
Jesus Fucking Christ this thread is full of IDIOT comments!
Nope, mostly because you are a whiner.
I junked you because it's fight club and you seem to like it.
How about this low-tech solution instead...
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/aEK5Lg-cw0Y/hqdefault.jpg
I'm told that 48% of California's potable water flows out to sea in support of the #StupidDeltaSmelt.
Well, fish are more important that people, right?
Wyoming here I come.
Once you try a plateful you will soon realize that StupidDeltaSmelt are so simply delicious that they are well worth saving.
I'll bet you can't eat just one...
On campus we had some Tri Delts that smelt of smelt.
State subsidized $2000 removals of front lawns!?!?!? Any questions as to why Ca is $443 billion in debt (calculated via GAAP ) ???
It's ridiculous. I can remove your lawn for 50 bucks. 5 gallons of gas, and the rest, profit.
Pragmatic solutions are illegal.
The most pragmatic solution would be for everyone to piss on their front lawns. Double the water savings and much cheaper and safer than Roundup!!!
Alas, that too is illegal, and you'll get put on the sex offender list as a prize. Some of the healthiest plants I have seen were pissed on daily.
I ruthlessly killed a patch of common Mallow with my method...
Which proves... ALL of you are idiots...
You could achieve it MUCH CHEAPER with household bleach...
But I'm sure I'll get JUNKED here a million times because asshole on ZH think they're fucking right about everything...
FFS ~ reading the goddamned comment section here, sometimes, is like reading a Facebook cheering section of Bob Costas sychophants...
They are writing about Mow Sod Plots.
What do you expect?
Hey Hulk, I've got some arrowhead sida I need you to come over and pee on. I hear the roots have ephedrine compounds.
Went out to the 'lawn' after a couple shots of whiskey and a couple of beers. Killed a tumbleweed in seconds.
was it just a couple of shots, or was your piss flammable?
How about not watering them and letting the grass die? That doesn't cost anything
thing is i can almost garantee that they are taking the grass rolling it up and selling it as sod to other homeowners elsewhere. big fucking scam.
If only Detroit would do that, there would be consortiums formed to securitize the purchase of vacant lots/burnt out houses and removal of the lawns.
Panhandlers get labels for their cups: No change, water only...
And WHY do you need to rip out the turf? Just let it die and turn brown already. Why waste resources to pull it out?
You will never get a job working for the government with an atitude like that.
LMAO
All those empty swimming pools can be used to shelter those Mexican travellers.
Naw dawg, empty pools means skateboarding!
Enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AwJ1Ubtf4Y
Yawn
You also don't need to have nuts made in California either, but what would be a government intervention if it didn't pick winners and losers through a political process.
You know what doesn't get "stymied in endless debate"? A free market where prices are free to move to reflect supply and demand.
Keep the lawns..replace the people with rocks..
Good sir, you have won the Internets today. Great imagery in a few short words.
Oh my God...Why are they ripping their lawns out and putting in new landscaping? First of all, there's no reason to rip out large areas of plants with extensive root systems in order to put in new plants. Plants that will, no matter WHAT they are, require MORE watering for the first 2 years to establish...Kinda defeats the purpose of the whole exercise, no? That mat of roots was holding water IN the soil...now you've gone and removed it.
You let it die off, then fork it under in spots and do your planting a little at a time as needed. But no, I bet their gonna be trucking in ALL kinds of nursery specimens, big ass expensive things that will experience a 75% die-off over the next 5 years. All those shallow root systems will be baking in the hot sun...
It appears to be madness to me, too. How can these people be unaware of Xeriscaping, which can be just as beautiful as a traditional garden in its own way. I was xeriscaping in an unusually arid region of the northwest over 20 years ago. Why not xeriscape a small section at a time with native plants? With landscape fabric, enough mulch, and the right plants, these people could have a beautiful established garden in a single year. Whether using drip irrigation or an infrequent soaking from a bucket, low water usage doesn't have to mean a sterile and unsightly garden.
Because they are citiots? Everyone is getting bleary eyed, and pining for the good old days of the dirty 30's. The soil will soon blow east.
I'm not surprised some entrepreneurs came up with a lawn removal business. Long term it will save water though it does depend on what the lawn is replaced with. Your method makes more sense -- stop watering the lawn completely. Let it brown out and die, thus saving water and making it easier to remove. That's not a method to make money as these Turk Terminators are doing.
Then it depends on what one replaces the turf with. The crap commercial nurseries will make out like mad marketing plants they will call "drought tolerant" that are not. Whatever is cheapest to produce will start showing up en masse everywhere.
However, done right, with the right attitude, this movement is a very healthy thing. One can do amazing things with California native plants. They just haven't fit in to the Southern California wet tropical fantasty land of ferns, banana trees and lawns. It requires a head change that the landscape is "green and colorful" all year long, it requires an acceptance of seasonal change which anyone outside of California deals with. It requires education on plant selection and watering techniques. Drought tolerant doesn't mean the plants don't need water. One needs to shift from daily shallow watering to periodic deep watering. Of course, one can plant a landscape of cacti and succulents which I've seen here and therre.
So the problem really becomes doing it thoughtfully and with adequate planning and use of the brain. Instead I fear what will happen is just the sort of scam you outline. You can bet the mega-nurseries are already gearing up to unload the same 20 plant varieties all over the landscape. It's an opportunity I hope isn't wasted.
Texas drought = global warming
Texas flooding = global warming
California drought = global warming
California floods 2017.....
Agreed. Grass lawns, almost anywhere, are a pointless and resource wasting anachronism.
How much more time have ya got in Attica?
All flesh is grass.The chickens and herbivores would disagree with you. In the rainy states. A grass lawn with some thatch buildup traps an enormous amount of water and sequestors millions of tons of CO2 (collectively)...it aint all bad...
I work every day to liberate as much stored carbon as i can. CO2 is the gas of life. Oxygen kills.
You know, when you burn hydrocarbons in air, eg petrol, you release various gases, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and WATER!
Damn electric cars, yeah! That must be the problem!
:P
Dust and mud leads to excessive use of petrochemical cleaners and solvents which leads to early death. Taking a nap on the grass daily can extend life by fifteen years (studies show)
This is for all you godless grass haters in the audience !!!
Dr Allan Savory, on how to green the planet and reverse global warming (which is anything but what the global warming alarmists want to do)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI
Bring on those mob grazing herbivores !!!
Green lawns in the desert?
see if they had only planted grass in the sahara the earth would be cooler.
Sahara? I don't know. But you may be surprised at what is possible if people only put in the effort.
But you can't make money out of plenty. More profit in shortages.
https://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en-AU&source=hp&q=greening+the+desert&gbv=2&oq=greening+the+desert&gs_l=heirloom-hp.3..0l10.10765.14344.0.15078.19.11.0.0.0.0.610.1016.4-1j1.2.0....0...1ac.1.34.heirloom-hp..17.2.1016.Z38bZ4_vEiw
https://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en-AU&source=hp&q=gadaffi+water&gbv=2&oq=gadaffi+water&gs_l=heirloom-hp.3..0i13l2j0i13i30l2j0i13i5i10i30j0i13i5i30j0i8i13i30.1938.6907.0.7453.13.13.0.0.0.0.437.2279.2-4j2j1.7.0....0...1ac.1.34.heirloom-hp..6.7.2279.2tIpxcEe4Uw
My philosophy is, if you can't eat it, I won't put any effort into it. And my findings are that grass does' nt eat well so it gets no respect at my household.
If you eat meat, you eat grass. Please, please don't be an idiot.
there ain't that many cow, goats, or chickens in my front yard.
Stormtrooper: "My philosophy is, if you can't eat it, I won't put any effort into it. And my findings are that grass does' nt eat well so it gets no respect at my household.
Amen brother. I'm cut from the samw cloth. In my new digs....NO 'LAWN"
The only thing I'm gonna plant is stuff I can EAT. I'm (so far) lucky that the little town I'm moving to is A-OK with that.
The guy in the water droplet outfit has one of those 255000 jobs that were created last month
"Turf serves no purpose".
Life has a purpose?
Grey Stone with Oasis Plant Package looks like crusher run with weeds.
Should be called the mars with a little water package.
How much wood could a wood chipper chip if a wood chipper could chip wood?
well if he's really thirsty and he lives in cali, he prolly won't chip much.
What ever happened to the victory garden? Plant veg and fruit in front and back yards? People want organic, grow it yourself.
At last check CA. Residents Pay for water. If I pay for something I should be able to do what I want with it.
As far as the drought goes in CA. Ask Texas how their drought is......
Same will happen in CA. Just a matter of time.
If CALI wants to conserve water then have them fix old rusted water pipes wasting over 20% of water even before it gets delivered.
I live in CA. The golf courses are green, the parks are green, the hillsides are somewhat green.
Said in other posts:
1. Most of the water is in bottles sold at stores.
2. Same goes for beer and other bottled water based products.
Get rid of production of water based products in CA.. Have them shipped in from other parts of the country where water is plentiful until drought is over.
IMO, farmers and ranchers should have free water.
I like to eat. LOL!
i think drought in ca will last much longer
farmers and ranchers should have free water.
First rule of desert - no free water to anyone
Here is why california farmers and ranchers get free water:
150 years ago, their forefathers and mothers decided to risk everything and move West. they sold their land and possessions, said farewell to their families, purchased a wagon and supplies, and joined a Company of other travelers.
They headed out on the California Trail. they watched animals, children and spouses die along the way.
When they got to California, they found a parched desert plain, and to the east, they found high snow-covered mountains. Using picks, shovels, draft animals, drag buckets and a little dynamite, they dug and balsted irrigation ditches from those mountains down into the valleys to water their farms. The amount of backbreaking physical work these people did is inconcievable by the effeminate standards of today.
By being the first people to brave the wilderness and settle California, and by being the first intrepid people to build the irrigation infrastructure to secure the water resources they needed, these people struggled and worked and died to secure their right to the water resources their descendants now enjoy.
Many years later, Communists and Community Organizers rode automobiles and airplanes safely into a well-watered paradise built by the first settlers of California. Because their parasitic philosophy mandated that they steal everything that was built up and created by others, the Communists decided that the water belonged to them, and not to those who worked so hard for it. Therefore the ancient law of prior appropriations has come under attack. The Comunists and Community Organizers have had great success stealing the wealth and creative fruits of others over time, so they are confident they will be able to steal all the water as well.
Thanks for my 6. Some people just don't get it.
Most excellent summation No. 9!!!
it was after or before they killed locals?
You forgot those pesky Indians and Mexicans who had all the rights to all the water for centuries before Anglo-Americans showed up. It was way before liberals and /or communists invasion of California when US Calvary brought with their guns enlightenment to the west and robed previous owners from their land and their water in the name of sharing and peaceful coexistence. Where are they now to claim their rights?
Now, the problem is that Wall Street hedge fund run mega-farms are too shy to share their profits stemming from theft and murder paid for with printed money and want to squeeze small farmer out of business and while at it to extort money from ordinary California residents through water rate hikes as soon as possible since NOAA just said that there is 70% chance that drought in California will be over next year and 90% within 2-3 years due to huge El nino developing in pacific as we speak.
For balanced look on this fake water osterity madness read:
https://sostratusworks.wordpress.com/2015/03/28/california-waterworld-of...
I can't even begin to comprehend your thinking that bottled water is a significant drain on the water table. Please, uninstall your browser.
Really now, have you not heard of Nestlé, Arrowhead, Crystal Geyser Water. Why not do some reading and come back to me after they are completely gutting the water water table.
Funny that you have a ex-governor in your sig. To me your uninformed and a idiot. Or maybe just a politician. Maybe all three.
Water is private property once it is purchased.
".... and because the state's citizens exhibit a peculiar nostalgia for the time they spent as British monarchs."
Will someone please tell me when Californians spent time as British monarchs, or even as British subjects? Great Britain does not play a prominent role in California history.
Part of the quote would actually be "straight out of the British Empire." Not the things you mentioned, but rather, trends and fashions.
American lawns and gardens do have a lot of English garden influence.
More of a French, than English influence, no? Like the lawns of Versaille?
Meter the water and charge by the gallon.
Put the price up until usage drops to the sustainable point.
that's odd. no water for citizens needs, yet plenty for WALMART to tap into for bottling & making a scam profit when they resell it back to the people. BOYCOTT WALMART BOTTLED WATER !
This will be a great benefit to illegal immigrant employment.
This will be a great benefit to illegal immigrant employment.
illegal rock pushers?
Environmentalists, global warming scare mongers and regulation enthusiasts blame California’s drought crisis on climate changes. But in that California’s water system is primarily man-made, the problems are man-made as well: an exploding population, primarily from immigration, is crushing the state’s infrastructure.
More than green lawns are targets. The radicals are now putting pressure on the state’s incredibly important agriculture industry. They would substitute Third World immigration for the critical food production provided by California.
Never mind that California ranks between 5th and 9th in the world in agriculture, ahead of such countries as Canada, Mexico, Germany and Spain. One of the points we need to make is that tech services, finance and insurance and education and health services do not use water as one of their primary inputs. But agriculture requires water to survive and produce.
According to Wikipedia, about 70% of the water provided by the California State Water Project - one of the largest publicly built and operated, water and power development and conveyance systems in the world - is used for urban areas and industry in Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area, and 30% is used for irrigation in the Central Valley.”
Never mind, also, that "one Federal judge threw out California’s means to water and food as the state’s newly created population swells to unsustainable levels." Here’s the rest of the story:
The Man-Made California Drought | Committee on Natural Resources.
California’s San Joaquin Valley is the salad bowl of the world, providing the majority of fruits and vegetables for the entire nation. But, with another man-made drought looming, the Sahange policies put the needs of fish above the livelihood of people.
House Republicans have a bipartisan, comprehensive solution to end future man-made droughts, bring job and water supply certainty to the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys in California and decrease reliance on foreign food sources.
Get the Facts:
http://naturalresources.house.gov/issues/issue/?IssueID=5921
As I have stated before in past years, we have become too stupid to survive...
Yes we are morons. We are part of the environment too. Politicians are corrupt, haggle over oil and gas pipelines. Do you have any idea how much fresh water from rivers dumps into the ocean or the Great Lakes all around the country? Why do we not prioritize water pipelines to cyphon off some of it for our own use? It would take 20 years of negotiating through a regulatory maze of our own creation and cost 50 times more than it should. In the short term, how about a dozen 4 inch pipes running 24 hours a day? 500-800 miles. It could be done. How about 50 new desal plants? They would cost less to build than an F35 joint strike fighter. What would be the environmental impact of displacing up to 22 million people? More than the risk of not acting quickly to develop new sources of water supply.
300 billion gallons are about a fifth of Shasta Lake's capacity.
That amount should have made a crucial difference?
Come to think of it that $100 hooker did smell like a $20 hooker.
Does Miracle Grow work without water?
A lot of associated jobs are going to go down the drain ( pardon the pun ).
Water off a ducks back i expect! oops
Rock gardens need weeding too.
I always liked the AZ style Cacti / Succulent / rock gardens anyway. But that's just me.
California scheming: Get ready for the triple whammy!
1. Pay to rip up your lawn
2. Get cited by the California zoning commission for your lawn not being within code standards
3. Get fined by Homeowners Association for not keeping your lawn up
4. Lose equity as neighborhoods fall in value from outside blemishes
The Moonbeam Governor rides again!
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain (It's time to toss the dice)
Got Karatbars?
About time. There are desert plants that are totally suited to a desertic climate, and beautiful too.
Plant an almond tree in your shower. Bring hot girlfriend tree hugger to share shower. Problem solved.