Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart – According to NYT if you maintain a nice garden lawn and mow it regularly you are upholding a symbol of racism and demonstrating your disregard for your personal carbon footprint.
The Great American Lawn: How the Dream Was Manufactured
America’s manicured front lawns represent the pride of homeownership, and the cultivation of community. But the ways we maintain them risk hurting the environment and contributing to climate change. So why do we even have lawns in the first place? We traced their history, starting with early European colonists.
Below, you’ll find some of the sources that helped us the most and other tidbits we weren’t able to fit into the video.
Aug. 9, 2019
America’s manicured front lawns represent the pride of homeownership, and the cultivation of community. But the ways we maintain them risk hurting the environment and contributing to climate change. So why do we even have lawns in the first place? We traced their history, starting with early European colonists.
Below, you’ll find some of the sources that helped us the most and other tidbits we weren’t able to fit into the video.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/video/lawn-grass-environment-history.html
The video starts by blaming colonists for importing foreign seed to feed their cattle, quickly moves to dissing George Washington for popularising manicured European style lawns maintained by slaves, then blames mechanised lawnmowers and advances in the printing press like colored advertising prints for contributing to climate change.
Low cost home loans for WW2 veterans are also attacked because they encouraged the veterans to embrace the climate destroying American dream.
They even attack Roosevelt for for mowing his lawn, when reporters wanted to ask him questions.
What can I say? Dissing the dreams of the deplorables seems to be a liberal pastime these days, especially when liberals manage to work in a few environmental and climate themes. Accusing people who want a nice house and a nice lawn of indirectly supporting the memory of slavery is just an added bonus.
Liberals won’t be happy until we’re all living in caves – except the climate elite like themselves of course, who will still enjoy the full benefits of industrial civilisation because they believe their special mission entitles them to a few perks.
Update (EW): Updated the image to a picture of George Washington, who is attacked in the video for popularising the idea of manicured lawns maintained by slaves.
Mowing around a residence was (and is) a means of vermin control. Mice , voles, and other pests prefer longer growth where they are not such an easy target for predators such as hawks, owls, and such. Lesson: If you want more vermin near (or in) your residence, let the grass and weeds grow.
Indeed, overgrown yards are Sanctuaries of Vermin and Bad for Public Health.
But as long as their maintenance or lack thereof doesn’t create a public health hazard, property owners should be at liberty to manage their green land as they see fit. And no, being aesthetically unpleasing to neighbors (an “eyesore”) is not a public health issue.
“Keeping turf from turning brown wastes water; people use too much pesticide and herbicide, toxic chemicals that can contaminate the fish we eat and water we drink. And keeping lawns at a reasonable height burns fossil fuels, releasing greenhouse gases and other pollutants into the atmosphere.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/another-downside-to-your-classic-green-lawn-22716743/#tvmJzDlvkCr1IkE0.03
There are alternatives. I added a bit of clover this year in my lawn’s bare spots. It took at a high rate. Does your lawn bring you happiness as the most conforming plebe on your block? Plant some wildflowers and clover and tell city hall to leave you alone. This will not result in anarchy. I promise.
Here’s a nice option to using fossil fuel for lawn maintenance
Also available in electric
I use a gas powered one. The idea is to mow less. More time to spend on Facebook and WUWT.
Funny, I thought the reason was to not use fossil fuels
If there are so few problems in the US that this complaint makes it into the NYT, then Trump’s America must be in really great shape.
The progressive addiction demands that something must always be WRONG, so that said wrong, real or perceived, can be protested. It’s how the social justice addict gets his virtue-signal fix.
Oh, is that what it is?
I just thought they couldn’t let a day go by without killing, stealing, or destroying something that kind, good-hearted people enjoy, maintain at their own expense, and willingly share with those who pass by.
You know–a day without a stomp-down is a day without sunshine!
I can’t name one thing the so-called Progressives have ever built that benefits anyone.
I guess you could say all the unrest and violence they promote helps the MSM keep the lights on.
So I wonder what all the “racists” in Scarsdale and Marin County, CA think of their new status in society. Are they going to let their properties got to pot now to prove they are not racists?
I have to protest. I get most of my exercise pushing a lawnmower around. It’s good for me and good for the lawn and good for the neighborhood. It increases property values, or rather keeps property values from dropping.
In the city, if you let your lawn get overgrown, city officials will come around and give you a fine and make you mow your lawn.
All these people cultivating the world as if it’s their own property makes me irritable. Didn’t you get the memo? You didn’t build that! So just leave all that dirt alone to take its natural shape, slide, flood, blow away, or whatever it desires, and get out of its way — you intruders.
And by the way, which Roosevelt is being referred to? While Teddy carried a big stick, didn’t you know that Franklin couldn’t even stand up without metal leg braces (polio) unless there was a podium to hold on to, and often his son or someone else at his side (once positioned upright and before the cameras started rolling) to prevent a topple? I don’t think he was one to be faulted as a mower of turf.
I mow our “grass”, which is actually a hodgepodge of probably a couple dozen varieties of grasses, plus “weeds” and wildflowers. We love dandelions, and good thing too, because we have them in abundance. I mow using a DR Mower, which has a blade height of 4″ four times – in early June, then perhaps a month later, then some time in August, then perhaps mid-September. The grass gets to be 3′ tall at times, which the DR cuts with ease. I never water, and the grass never browns, nor do I use any kind of chemicals. Life is good. Different strokes, I guess. I try not to laugh at people with the manicured lawns, out there slaving away.
“I mow our “grass”, which is actually a hodgepodge of probably a couple dozen varieties of grasses, plus “weeds” and wildflowers.”
That’s what my “lawn” looks like. 🙂
Those of us who have lived away from cities figured out that mud was not desirable and brush was outright dangerous.
I always thought American lawns were mowed to cut down on ticks and cutting down on habitats for various vermin.
Possible trivia:
The clearcutting of tall grasses, weeds, brush and trees from around the perimeter of early American homes was a “safety precaution” to dissuade and prevent criminal acts and to better protect oneself from (native American) Indian, French and/or English that were intent on “killing” the inhabitants.
The perimeter around said homes became “yards” when the grass was permitted to grow to protect from mud and dirt from being “tracked” into the home. The grass was cut noninfrequently via use of sickle, scythe or livestock.
And then the “yards” became know as manicured “lawns” after this invention, to wit:
GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
Not again. We heard the same thing in the seventies and were told we had to raise corn instead to avoid starvation. They stopped mowing the public lawns in Boston and found out about rats and snakes. Not mentioned is lawns give you a clear line of fire. Indians.
“They even attack Roosevelt for for mowing his lawn, when reporters wanted to ask him questions.” I assume this must have been Theodore R – I can’t imagine FDR mowing his own lawn.
Does the NYT still conduct that annual competition of ‘Holidays from Hell’ where contestants nominate holidays that were total disasters?
I would suggest they commence a new competition -“Most Unbelievable Climate Story.”
“The Great American Lawn” is a modest entrant.
I am running a private competition myself and recording outstanding entrants.
Over the last decade the clear winner was, I believe, in The Guardian where the author claimed that when Aliens arrive and see what we have done to the environment they will exterminate everyone on Earth.
It was not written as a parable.
A leading contender for 2019 was in The Times, Saturday, April 6 last, “Climate change drives confused walruses to deaths from clifftops”. That episode was fully debunked here (WUWT, passim) and by Dr.Susan Crawford.
Another leading contender was Time Magazine’s cover story on June 24 last, “Our Sinking Planet” telling the alleged fate of Tuvalu, Fiji and other Pacific Islands from rapidly rising sea levels. The cover featured a photo of U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres in a suit standing in the ocean at Tuvalu with water up to his knees, looking suitably lugubrious. I am keeping the edition as a souvenir.
There is also the Newsweek (?) lead story with front page photo of water half way up the Statue of Liberty.
This is another example of why liberals should not be voted into power.
This is exactly what the leader/creators of The Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb, thought.
The owning and care of a well kept lawn is *exactly* one of the reasons Qutb gave as to why the west must be destroyed.
Why?
Do they prefer miles and miles of sand dunes?
Sheep and geese were used for centuries in Europe and China to keep lawns mown. And you could eat them. Try munching on your lawn mower.
~>ValidateYour ><RightsCarry!<~
Geese reputedly saved Rome from a night attack by the Gauls in 390BC by cackling to give the alarm.
I don’t know what the neighbours would think, and geese leave an awful mess on the grass.
A current fad in the UK is to manage all or part of the lawn as a hay meadow.
Sown with a mixture of grasses and wild flowers, it is allowed to grow until the flowers have set seed and then cut with a hand or mechanical scythe and the cut grass allowed to dry until the seed has fallen out, then removed and composted. The grass is then cut a couple of times before the winter.
When we have a dry time in the summer we set the mower an inch higher until we get enough rain to get the grass growing again.
Last year and this year we have had dry spells in June with the lawn going quite brown. Once the rain came it has been greened up again quite nicely.
That reminds me, I’ll have to get a catalytic converter fitted to my lawnmower.
Will your wife enjoy that….?
Not to mention the (obviously) Nazi-like use of child slave labour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If0klxxixjQ
One weeps a flood.
I’m struggling to work out the logic here …
But, our lawn is currently quite bare after having a pile of insulation on it, because I’ve had a two year project to dramatically increased the insulation of our house. And my son also is home from University and has decided that our tree is too tall – which means we now have a stack of firewood ready to burn – but if last winter is anything to go by, the house is now so cosy that it will get far too hot if we ever light the fire!
… I guess all this insulation will be seen by the climate cult as me perpetuating the slave trade.
As long as the washing machine is Energy Star rated, and the mattress still has that tag, it should be fine.
But maybe a Prius on blocks would be more enviro than the F150.
Yet more demonizing of white folk.
Does not matter what you do they just hate you.
It adds a new meaning to the thought of being put to the green sward.
Plantation owners had lawns, therefore lawns are racist.
Plantation owners lived in houses, therefore living in a house is racist.
I can’t tell if your serious, or pointing just how stupid this is…? I’ll spell it out for everyone else.
Plantation owners were European therefore all Europeans are racist.
Plantation owners sweat more in hot climates therefore all people that sweat more in hot climates are racist.
Plantation owners wore nicer clothes, therefore all people that wear nicer clothes are racist.
Plantation owners had straighter hair, therefore all people with straighter hair are racist.
The logical fallacy is the same in each argument here.
Interestingly, this logical fallacy is called the fallacy of generalization.
Also,
Long grass + kids or pets = lime disease. No one in New York apparently knows that.
There are eco-friendly ways to mow grass. Check out the automower by Husqvarna. 👍. It mows my grass for me, now I have time to comment on stupidity online 😘
Wild animals love my well trimmed and watered lawn. There are always rabbits feeding on it. Chipmunks scurry around. Another day, a doe gave birth to a fawn, right on my lawn, under a tree in front of the house.
Lawns, particularly the heavily manicured ones, are a form of status-signalling, although most won’t recognize it and few will admit it. Just look at how companies market lawn services and products — impress the neighbors, particularly if you can do it leisurely while others (service companies) do the work. Like the great manor owners of Europe, you have servants for that sort of thing.
Walls, particularly the heavily built ones, are a form of status signalling, although most won’t recognize it, and few will admit it. Just look at how companies market walled and gated communities with 24/7 armed security—rent a cops—so the rich elite, the Zuckerberg’s for example, can live fulfilled lives in safety, particularly while other service companies cater to their every want and need with servants for their walled manors. And while enjoying their lifestyles of the rich and famous they get to virtue signal about free trade in products and underage bodies for sex and borders without walls, and without eating food in a defunct franchise named Sambos. However, apparently you can still eat flap jacks in the original Sambos in Santa Barbara, ca.., if you should feel the need to be racist for a meal. Fortunately, president Barack was half white and half black, so Barack’s voters and supporters were only half racist.
There is an all-important difference between ‘servant’ and ‘slave’.
I sometimes pay someone to cut my hair or bring me a drink, or bring me a truckload of compost, or to provide electricity for a fan.
Doesn’t have any relation to slavery. My Norse ancestors may have taken slaves to sell in Turkey, pretty sure that was more about who had gold and who had swords, and who didn’t, than about race.