Environmentalism

I don't understand the huge gulf between the terms "conservative" and "conservationist". I don't understand why 
experts at making money are so ignorant, generally, of the cost to humanity and the planet at large of this ruthless 
insatiable exploitation of what in cosmic terms is a very small place indeed. Economies can not expand indefinitely 
on this finite planet, any more than population can. Limits will be reached. Some of us are trying now to minimize 
the damage we all are causing to this natural home of ours, and we're branded as radicals. It is economically 
unsound to plunder the planet for a little bit of money, unless you don't care about anything but your immediate 
gratification. A society based on greed cannot survive indefinitely: it's physically, statistically impossible. So 
stop now.  Lawns are bad:

	
THE LAWN FETISH 
 
Now a little botany quiz: How do those big showy flowers disperse their
pollen? By animal carriers like bees and beetles and nectar-eating bats.
How do grasses disperse _their_ pollen? By wind. So between grasses and
what we call flowers, meaning the plants with big showy flowers, which
pollen is more likely to get up your nose? That's right, grass pollen. But
people think flowers will make them sneeze. So we just put flowers on the
borders of these vast expanses of trimmed grass-leaves called lawns, and we
take out the whole ecosystem that was there before, including all the wild
flowers. Without them, many insects go hungry and disappear, making the
animals that eat them also disappear- those that escape the lawnmower
blades, that is. And it's not just flowers. Where I live now, in the New
Jersey pinelands, blueberries thrive in the woods, but developers take them
out and put in lawns under the few trees they leave standing, when they're
not putting houses up on perfectly good farmland, and the people that buy
the houses either have no idea what was there before or consider any plant
that's not bought in a store to not belong on their property. Somehow the
American Dream has come to include having your very own strip of green turf
to water and fertilize, only to have the mown clippings-- the biomass
product of all this care-- carted away to the municipal dump, or if you're
lucky, the municipal compost pile, ready for other people to come help
themselves to. So the lawns must continually be fertilized to replace
what's thrown away. Some homeowners are smart and mulch their own grass
clippings, but many of them still keep the lawn trimmed with mowers that
pollute more than the worst SUV or luxury sedan. Some buy electric mowers,
and if their utility company is forward-thinking, those things are powered
by renewable energy like wind, water or solar power. Or even biomass
incineration or methane production, fueled partly by grass clippings! Scott
used to make great push-mowers which eliminate the pollution problem and
also double as exercise devices, but they've been discontinued in favor of
these flimsy new ones which don't have the heft to generate any blade
momentum. If you scour the thrift shops, though, you might come across a
nice old one for five bucks like I did. (I don't use it now, though, since
I have no lawn at all. Five acres and no lawn; imagine that. Only
blueberries, bracken and mountain laurel among the trees.)

On top of this, there's now a craze for _ornamental_ grasses! No
flowers with any nectar for bees, no fruits for animals, and plenty of
pollen to go up your nose! Yes you too can make your place look like the
Argentine Pampas. Only $29.99. Meanwhile Buffalo-grass and other native
tall grasses that could just as easily be your ornamental choices, are not
offered for sale.

Don't misunderstand me: I like the look of a greensward as much as
anyone and I love golf, baseball and other lawn sports; but people waste
water in deserts so they can have lawns, they pump chemicals into their
lawns that leach into the water table and kill things, and they reduce the
biomass production capacity in areas that could support mature forests,
impoverishing the whole planet. Think: is a cactus garden really any less
appealing than a lawn in Arizona?

There are communities here and there that are combating this lawn
mania by requiring native vegetation to be used, and the National Wildlife
Federation [www.nwf.org] has a Backyard Habitat Program that helps people
make their properties more attractive to wildlife. But there are many more
communities that actually have lawn laws such that a homeowner _must_
maintain a certain area as a lawn and _must_ keep it mowed to a certain
height, or risk a fine. These laws need to be fought one by one at the
local level. The beauty of nature needs to be taught to most people. The
North American Native Plant Society [www.nanps.org] can guide you to a
local organization that can tell you what plants are native to your area
and where you can obtain them. One little mail-order nursery I've found is
Pine Ridge Gardens in Arkansas [www.pineridgegardens.com]. They sell a lot
of native species; they list which of their plants are native and to where;
they're sensitive to the problem of nurseries digging up wild plants for
sale; they pack their shipments with care and include bonus gift plants;
they print their catalog on plain paper, not that wasteful glossy stuff
that most companies use. If anyone reading this knows of other
native-friendly nurseries, email me about them.


Even if you do keep your lawn, why is it that so few people in
Suburbia grow any food plants on their properties? The amount of energy
they spend on their lawns is at least equal to what a little garden would
require. Is wartime the only appropriate time for citizens to grow their
own food?? (For those too young to remember or who haven't been told,
Victory Gardens were encouraged during World War Two so the troops wouldn't
go hungry having to split the food with us civilians. They also made steel
pennies so the copper could be saved for bombshells.) Tomatoes are great
for the prostate: every man should have a few vines. Grapes are good for
the heart: everyone with well-drained soil should have an arbor. Farms are
turning into developments everywhere: what about towns buying them in co-op
style and having the residents grow crops on them? Not for profit: for the
fun and pleasure of it. It would keep a lot of kids out of trouble if they
had some tomato or grape vines to keep care of. Just a thought.

Here's what we need to do:
 		
		1) bring nature back to our properties (see NWF's Backyard Habitat Program)
		
		2) protect what we can from development (Nature Conservancy's mission) 

		3) have fewer children (see Population Connection). 

If we do Number Three, many of our other problems will just vanish. Replacement childbirth rate is 2.1 children per 
mother, so if we just have two children each we will eventually reverse the population explosion. But we have 
political and religious leaders who still think there's no population problem. Those of us within those organizations
need to change that attitude if we want our great-grandchildren to enjoy the world in a state even close to the 
already badly degraded one we've put it in.  Think before you buy. Orange Roughy and "Chilean Sea Bass" take a 
hundred years to mature, but we're harvesting them as if they were sardines that reproduce in one year. Foreign 
companies can now sell tuna with a "dolphin safe" label on the can even though they still catch dolphins with their 
tuna. Shrimp not caught by American trawlers don't have to use Turtle Exclusion Devices (TEDs)on their nets, but 
because of international trade laws we can't refuse to import them, so unless you know where your shrimp came from 
you may be helping exterminate sea turtles every time you buy shrimp. _And_ last year I learned that the standard 
size for a TED is too small for an adult Leatherback turtle to pass through! The boats in Charleston, SC, at least, 
now all have the "plus size" TEDs installed, but I don't know about the rest of the fleet. Long line fishing kills 
albatross as well as sea turtles, yet there's no law to regulate its use. We should develop a taste for catfish and 
other farmed species, and stop destroying wetlands which is where many fish we eat come to spawn. We "reclaim" all 
this coastal land and then wonder what happened to the fish!
	
Demand less packaging. By avoiding buying things packaged in nonrecyclable containers and by composting vegetable 
matter, I have reduced my trash output to about one large plastic bag every six months. This is mostly made up of 
shrink-wrap and other pieces of plastic. Thus I'm appalled at the statistical amount of garbage the average American 
generates. Also remember that plastic is not truly recyclable since it can't be reused for the same purpose, such as 
a soda bottle, and eventually it disintegrates, if it doesn't end up in a landfillÐ and most plastics are infused 
with amounts of heavy metals to keep their shape, and these eventually leach out. Also, the making of plastics 
involves the byproduction of many horrible compounds like PCBs and dioxin. The reason so much stuff is wrapped in 
plastic is that it's cheaper to transport due to its light weight. Thus recycling plastics is not the answer: 
reverting to glass and metal containers is much more responsible. If you have a choice of buying something in glass 
or plastic, buy the glass version. If enough of us do it, Corporate Central will take notice.  Demand more recycled 
paper. I consider it a crime for a company to kill a tree to make something I wipe my behind with. There are brands 
of tissue products in health food stores made from 100% recycled paper. In bigger chain stores, brands like Marcal 
feature varying percentages. Read the package, and pay attention to how much of the recycled content is post-consumer. 
The part that isn't is simply scraps that have been swept up from the factory floor that previously would have been 
discarded but now can be called recycled because instead of throwing it out they've found a use for it, but it's 
not recycled since it never left the factory in the first place. Remember, it's up to us the consumers to make 
corporations behave responsibly, because government is generally bought by those companies and is thus disinclined 
to piss them off by enacting regulation legistlation, unless We the People push for it.  Contributions to most 
environmental charities is tax-deductible, meaning you can divert some of your tax dollars away from Uncle Sam and 
toward organizations fighting to preserve what we can of this little globe we're on. If you have to pay the taxes 
anyway, send them somewhere where you know what they'll be used for, and not used for.

	The Population Connection
	The Nature Conservancy
	Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics
	The Jane Goodall Institute
	Earthjustice
	Natural Resources Defense Council
	National Wildlife Federation
	Friends of the Earth
	Greenpeace
	The Sierra Club