
American lawns take up the same area as NY state, cost $40 billion a year - theoneill
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/07/21/080721crbo_books_kolbert?currentPage=all
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jonknee
This study sounds way off. It was by NASA which means they were trying to tell
a lawn from satellite. That's probably tough--having to discount natural grass
land and farms (which there is a fair amount of) and accurately getting the
percentage. Not to mention seeing through tree cover to see if there is grass
below. There is a lot of green out there, not a whole lot of it is mowed
lawns.

50,000 square miles is 1/70th of all land in the US _including_ Alaska (3.5m
sq mi total). If you've ever driven through the country, 1/70th is not a mowed
lawn. You can drive for hundreds of miles without seeing a single one. If you
discount Alaska the total is 1/58th.

Looking another way that would be 32,000,000 acres of lawn. which comes out to
1/10 acre of lawn per person in the country. At first that seems more
reasonable, 1/10th of an acre isn't a lot, but that's per person not
household. A 4-person family comes to 4/10 of an acre--a decent sized lot. And
since there are large numbers of people with no lawn the number increases for
people who actually do (10m in NYC without one means 10m other people would
need twice as much space, etc).

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xlnt
Congratulations, you're smarter than NASA. Well done.

Now please solve this problem too: making NASA competent.

(To be clear: no sarcasm intended.)

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astine
I don't think he was saying that NASA was incompetent, but that the task at
hand was infeasible, particularly using the means that NASA typically has a
hand (ie. using satellite images instead of of county records.)

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xlnt
He didn't say that, I did. He just pointed out mistakes they made, including
not subjecting their results to a basic sanity test.

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sdurkin
Yes, but I like my lawn. It's green, I can lay on it, or just walk across it
in my bare feet.

The point is, its our 40 billion, and we can spend it any way we like.

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snewe
It is your $40 billion, however...when you see huge green lawns in deserts
like central CA or Phoenix you should also see the enormous subsidies that are
being handed out. If those that lived in deserts paid the real cost of water
(not the public-monopoly regulated price), I suspect there would be a LOT
fewer lawns. The same argument applies to the suburban sprawl: if those that
decide to live 50 miles from the city center had to pay the real cost of
building 6 lane highways to their "communities," few track houses would be
built. Instead, an entire state or country splits the bill for roads and we
get inefficient land use. // end rant;

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danteembermage
I have a lawn because I know in the very near future I will be able to use
vats of bacteria in my backyard to convert the clippings into: 1\. Oil 2\.
Steak

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Andys
You know, in the distant past people had devices which converted them into
steak too.

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comatose_kid
Why do print magazines make such poor use of the internet? It's not like it
would have hurt them to add references to their research.(eg, how did they
arrive at $40B figure?).

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ssharp
I'm proud to contribute my 3 acres to this. I definitely don't water any of it
though - I want it to grow as little as possible! More growing = more mowing.

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hs
I switched to no-tech aquascape instead no more watering :D (maybe once a week
water change) and only about once in three months for 'mowing' along with
cleaning up

fertilizing is also easy, fish and turtle excesses: just feed my turtles
(separate aquarium) with excess floating leaves ... and get the fert the next
day (the same spirit with those who use rabbit for fert)

Alongside, i romantized with chemistry lab 101 ... after reading forums on
ferts (google PMDD and Estimative Index)

Made my own fert, mixing KNO3, KH2PO4 (NPK part), Mg,Zn,Fe and minor traces

Chemistry is another side of life that u can get a lot with little effort ...
so is aquascape (compared to gardening)

These stuffs are almost like hacking/programming (tho not as scalable) so
naturally i'm interested ;)

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kp212
That's fine, but lets ban watering the lawn, its not your drinkable water to
waste...

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sdurkin
Yes it is. I bought it. To me it's not a waste at all.

If there's some sort of externality I'm not seeing, have the government tax me
for it.

Furthermore, even if I did pour the water down a drain, what business of yours
is it as long as I bought it fairly?

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kp212
Yes it is my business. This is the same approach people took on gas and corn.
Consume so much until the price impacts us. Except this time, I don't want to
pay $5 a gallon on water in 2020, because a bunch of people wanted to run it
all day on their lawn at 25 cents a gallon in 2008. People already are
stuggling on fuel, we don't need the same approach on water.

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hugh
Water is entirely unlike oil, in that it's renewable. (You might have noticed
that it falls out of the sky every now and then.)

Whatever water you use in 2008 will still be available for use in 2020. Dams
are already built and are collecting water whether you use it or not, so
unless the water levels in your local dam are getting low there's no point in
conserving it.

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jcl
While water is renewable, there is a limited supply of cheap water for crops,
and some areas are using it at a higher rate than it is being replenished.
Wikipedia mentions that the Ogallala Aquifer, which is used to irrigate a
significant portion of Midwest farmland, may run dry in 25 years:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer>

For the people in that area, the aquifer is their "local dam" and it is
getting low.

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hugh
That's true. My comments don't apply if you're in an area which uses
underground water.

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xlnt
> The same study concluded that most of this New York State-size lawn was
> growing in places where turfgrass should never have been planted.

That is scientism. They are pretending to be doing science (with all the
respect due science) but are giving conclusions about _moral_ issues like
whether people _should_ plant grass in a way that makes them happy, or not.

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weegee
how much will the cover of the New Yorker cost a year when Obama doesn't get
elected? how many more will die in Iraq for no reason? How many innocent
Iranians will die from McCains bombs?

These are the questions you should be asking, New Yorker!

