I consider clover to be a weed and go to great lengths to eradicate it. People underestimate how many people just want lawns of perfect, green, undifferentiated grass.
https://laidbackgardener.blog/2020/11/04/clover-in-the-lawn-...
The secret was to turn clover from a friend into an enemy. Pesticide companies decided to launch an intensive advertising campaign to convince homeowners that white clover was a weed that needed to be destroyed. They spent literally millions on advertising to persuade unconvinced gardeners.
The reality is the majority of our modern world and lives can be seen as a waste of energy, resources, and, "hubris against nature" and it seems like there is some subjective line for each person that delineates what is too far.
Why should we burn endless amounts of gas/coal/other energy when the "natural" solution is to either naturally adapt or to simply live in more habitable environments.
Anyways, yes, I'll give you that comparing HVAC to lawns is silly, but it doesn't take much imagination to think of less silly examples that we accept. So my question is who draws the lines? Whose standard is the standard that everyone should follow? Manicured lawns not cool, ok. What about backyard pools? What about irrigation systems? What about drainage ditches or other infrastructure that allow for land to perk so more housing can be made available, but negatively affects downstream wildlife? Etc, etc.
Speaking personally, it's about externalities: American suburbs have ludicrous amounts of common and private infrastructure, all financed through the lie of infinite and perpetual growth. All of that infrastructure has hidden externalities, ones that aren't being addressed on the individual or state levels. Monoculture lawns are just one tiny example of that, manifest in their cost to the local ecosystem (and additional water demands, pesticide use, &c.).
It's worth realizing that carefully curated and maintained lawns are more of a signifier of wealth than anything else. The trend originated in Victorian-era Europe, and somehow stuck.
If I ignore the smell of my body I'll eventually be rewarded with a staph infection or worse. If I don't use grass monoculture on my lawn I eventually am rewarded with pollinators, blooms, and an ecologically active space.
Lawns require 200 gallons of drinking water per day. In 2005, the amount of lawn cultivated in the US would cover the entire terrestrial surface of Texas. We use 17 million gallons of gas on lawn mowers every year, and tens of millions of pounds of chemical fertilizer and pesticides. All said, Americans spend more than $36 billion USD a year on lawn care, more than 4x the annual budget of the Environmental Protection Agency.
At least with a shower I get something out of the water I used. With lawns what do you get? Empty green space. Fuck bees, fuck butterflies, fuck rabbits, I need my neighbors to know I can afford to let my land lay fallow in an aesthetically inert way.
My lawn gets most of it's water from rain actually. We supplement occasionally when necessary. But during drought we just let it go a little brown. Not a big deal.
I still love my lawn and mowing it is a very nice break from sitting on the computer.
What horseshit is this ? What water-hungry grass do you use ?
But then it wouldn't look the certain way you want, would it? That seems to be the main concern for Americans.
Or the overgrazed pasture with no flowering plants?
Or the industrial areas? I guess those at least have the occasional dumpster from a candy factory.
You and Dow chemial, who demonized this Nitrogen fixing wonder in order to make more money.
If you don't want a weed on your garden, fair enough, but what's the point of the homogenous-lawn ideal Americans seem to have? It feels like a holdover from something like cold-war cultural propaganda.
People have different preferences and that used to be OK.