American Green

My recent Lawn Order comic was printed in the Anchorage Press next to a review of a book called American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn by Ted Steinberg, which led me to buying it. As boring as lawncare is, the book seemed interesting and funny.

I picked up the book thinking our obsession with lawn mowing was a ridiculous waste of time and meaningless status symbol to most Americans. I finished with an amazing amount of insight into just how the desire for an unrealistically green lawn--that is completely free of weeds-- came about (chemical companys and the proliferation of golf courses) and the staggering environmental effect it has. A few choice facts from the book:

Using a gas-powered leaf blower for half an hour creates as many polluting hydrocarbon emissions as driving a car seventy-seven hundred miles at a speed of thirty miles per hour.

In the process of refueling their lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and other garden equipment, Americans spill about seventeen million gallons of gasoline every summer, or about 50% more than marred the Alaskan coast during the notorious Exxon Valdez disaster.

A single golf course in Tampa, Florida--a state that leads the nation with over a thousand of these emerald green creations--uses 178,800 gallons of water per day, enough to meet the daily water needs of more than twenty-two hundred Americans.

Positively reassuring, is it not?