Hello hello, welcome back to this week's edition of Sunday Chillin'! Sunset is officially after 8pm now, isn't that crazy? Also how is it already May...time marches onward without sympathy.
America's Folly
Spend enough time around me and I'm sure to talk your ear off about my least-favorite aspect of American culture. That's right, you guessed it, I'm talking about the dastardly suburban lawn.
Most sane people have probably never spent any brain cycles on the subject of lawns, but these American staples really do represent so many things that are wrong with our Western, capitalistic society. Now don't get me wrong, I like neatly trimmed lawns and squared off edges as much as the next guy. But I can get that same satisfaction of rectangular shapes from a bar of soap. Lawns come with too many downsides to ignore.
For those of you who have not delved into landscaping literature, I'd like to elaborate a bit today on why I so detest these suburban fixtures. We can start with another one of my favorite topics, water, and then go from there.
Did you know, for example, that lawns account for over 50% of residential water use in the state of California? Even with agricultural water use taken into account, lawns and landscape irrigation on residential properties still consumes roughly 7% of our water every year. [1]
I want to make very clear: this is an insane statistic. Lawns don't even do anything. In fact, they're worse than planting nothing at all. Grass in the US requires huge amounts of fertilizer, pesticides, water, maintenance, and money. How come there are some plants that can thrive in the crags of the Sierra Nevada, buffeted by strong winds and extended periods of drought, but grass that just languishes in manicured lots needs thousands of gallons of sweet, sweet H2O every summer? Pathetic.
Speaking of fertilizer, the runoff from watering our lawns delivers a massive amount of chemicals into our water systems. Obviously, water meant for drinking has these chemicals filtered out before human consumption (I hope), but a large volume of this contaminated liquid enters our waterways. Once in open waters, the nitrogen content in the fertilizers leads to algal blooms and all sorts of other microbial processes that leave water systems much worse for the wear. [2] And let's not even get started talking about the carcinogens in pesticides.
Once your grass is all coddled and cushy, then it's time to let it thrive! But don't tell me you wanted to let it grow and become some sort of haven for wildlife and insects?? No no no, that would be silly. Instead, you're required to cut it below some arbitrary threshold because your suburban HOA overlords demand uniformity and the illusion of order.
But in cutting your lawn, you're doing so much damage to the environment that it's shameful. Something that many of you may not know (though you may have suspected it) is that all engines in modern road vehicles are required to follow relatively stringent emissions standards. [3]
But these standards do not apply to lawn equipment!
This means that the Invisible Hand of the market has configured those lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and weed whackers with incredibly inefficient and dirty engines. So inefficient, in fact, that typical lawn equipment emits more greenhouse gases than pickup trucks or sedans by a significant margin. [4]
Check out this unbelievable warning from the California Air Resources Board back in 2017:
Most sane people have probably never spent any brain cycles on the subject of lawns, but these American staples really do represent so many things that are wrong with our Western, capitalistic society. Now don't get me wrong, I like neatly trimmed lawns and squared off edges as much as the next guy. But I can get that same satisfaction of rectangular shapes from a bar of soap. Lawns come with too many downsides to ignore.
For those of you who have not delved into landscaping literature, I'd like to elaborate a bit today on why I so detest these suburban fixtures. We can start with another one of my favorite topics, water, and then go from there.
Did you know, for example, that lawns account for over 50% of residential water use in the state of California? Even with agricultural water use taken into account, lawns and landscape irrigation on residential properties still consumes roughly 7% of our water every year. [1]
I want to make very clear: this is an insane statistic. Lawns don't even do anything. In fact, they're worse than planting nothing at all. Grass in the US requires huge amounts of fertilizer, pesticides, water, maintenance, and money. How come there are some plants that can thrive in the crags of the Sierra Nevada, buffeted by strong winds and extended periods of drought, but grass that just languishes in manicured lots needs thousands of gallons of sweet, sweet H2O every summer? Pathetic.
Speaking of fertilizer, the runoff from watering our lawns delivers a massive amount of chemicals into our water systems. Obviously, water meant for drinking has these chemicals filtered out before human consumption (I hope), but a large volume of this contaminated liquid enters our waterways. Once in open waters, the nitrogen content in the fertilizers leads to algal blooms and all sorts of other microbial processes that leave water systems much worse for the wear. [2] And let's not even get started talking about the carcinogens in pesticides.
Once your grass is all coddled and cushy, then it's time to let it thrive! But don't tell me you wanted to let it grow and become some sort of haven for wildlife and insects?? No no no, that would be silly. Instead, you're required to cut it below some arbitrary threshold because your suburban HOA overlords demand uniformity and the illusion of order.
But in cutting your lawn, you're doing so much damage to the environment that it's shameful. Something that many of you may not know (though you may have suspected it) is that all engines in modern road vehicles are required to follow relatively stringent emissions standards. [3]
But these standards do not apply to lawn equipment!
This means that the Invisible Hand of the market has configured those lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and weed whackers with incredibly inefficient and dirty engines. So inefficient, in fact, that typical lawn equipment emits more greenhouse gases than pickup trucks or sedans by a significant margin. [4]
Check out this unbelievable warning from the California Air Resources Board back in 2017:
“By 2020, gas-powered leaf blowers, lawn mowers, and similar equipment in the state could produce more ozone pollution than all the millions of cars in California combined.”
This is actually due to fact that engines in lawnmowers and other tools are two-stroke engines instead of four-stroke. Two-stroke engines lack a lubricant system so the the fuel and the oil are mixed. Due to this design, they release immense amounts of particulate matter, leading to terrible health outcomes for workers, children, and all those who may venture Too Close.
The scale of these problems is such even just the oil mistakenly spilled while fueling lawn equipment adds up to over 17 million gallons per year. Even the smallest of mistakes matter when they're done so regularly en masse.
And all this for what? Just so you can pay Steve's Lawn Care service $500/year to maintain a facade of wealth?? 17 million gallons of gasoline spilled because Neighbor Johnson needs to win the Annual Subdivision Landscape Award™ and get revenge on Neighbor Patel for beating him last year??
I've never once walked by a lawn that changed my life. Lawns don't inspire much of anything besides a firm nod from suburban dads. Crowds of spectators don't gather round to watch the spectacle of a lawn being mowed. [5] And goodness golly, many people don't even want you walking on their lawns or messing up their picture-perfect pastures. Why use so much land if you want it to be untouched?
I could keep going on and on (can you tell?) but this newsletter is already getting too long as it is. Suffice it to say, I don't like lawns and neither should you. So next time you see your grass approaching that HOA length-limit, sit back, relax, and light a bunch of gasoline on fire. You'd still be doing less damage to the environment and at least that way you'll introduce some spice into your day. [6]
I've never once walked by a lawn that changed my life. Lawns don't inspire much of anything besides a firm nod from suburban dads. Crowds of spectators don't gather round to watch the spectacle of a lawn being mowed. [5] And goodness golly, many people don't even want you walking on their lawns or messing up their picture-perfect pastures. Why use so much land if you want it to be untouched?
I could keep going on and on (can you tell?) but this newsletter is already getting too long as it is. Suffice it to say, I don't like lawns and neither should you. So next time you see your grass approaching that HOA length-limit, sit back, relax, and light a bunch of gasoline on fire. You'd still be doing less damage to the environment and at least that way you'll introduce some spice into your day. [6]
Onward to the Tunes
To incentivize you to shirk your domestic responsibilities, this week I'm showcasing songs that don't work very well with the accompanying roar of a lawn mower. When I used to mow our family's lawn back in the day, I would put in some headphones and attempt to listen to my favorite tunes. Unfortunately, I would usually need to crank the decibel level up to unholy levels in order to actually hear the music so I'd eventually give up. Hopefully most of you don't have lawns and this will not be an issue, but just as a heads up, these songs sound best without such adversarial conditions (trust me, I've tried). Whatever situations you decide to listen to these in, I hope you enjoy nonetheless! Lots of variety this week.
Feeling This Way - Kris Allen
Spotify | YouTube
Friendly Sound - Lemaitre
Spotify | YouTube
Inhale - Bryson Tiller
Spotify | YouTube
Home By The Sea - Genesis [7]
Spotify | YouTube
For those of you that have other similar grievances with oft-unnoticed aspects of our society, please respond to this email and let me know. I'm always looking for more things to have an unnecessary opinion on.
See you all next Sunday!
suhaas
————————————————————————————
If you'd like to share this newsletter with your friends, please direct them to this link.
Here are Spotify and YouTube playlists with all the songs so far.
[1] Imagine that for every 13 glasses of water that you drank, a rabid HOA member would pop out of your driveway and smack the 14th glass out of your hand into your lawn claiming that it needed to satisfy the Suburban Gods. Now replace "glasses" with "millions of acre-feet", replace "you" with "USA," and replace "hand" with "system" and what do you get?? A very confusing sentence. But I hope you get my point.
[2] This process is referred to as eutrophication, and it leads to dead zones in water habitats. The overgrowth of algae on the surface prevents sunlight from reaching the depths, leading to a hypoxic (oxygen-depleted) environment, which lays waste to life living beneath. Then once the algae die, bacteria eat up the algae and use up even more oxygen for cellular respiration. Honestly, it's a bad time all around, but at least you learned a new vocab word.
[3] To be fair, entities like our boi Volkswagen didn't actually follow these emissions standards for decades, but the point still stands. At least the standards exist! When do you think John Deere will get sued like the automakers did? Big Grass lobbies too hard for this to ever happen.
[4] Running one of these two-stroke engines for one hour is equivalent to driving 500 miles in a gas-powered car. This should give you more excuses to not mow your lawns and go on roadtrips instead. Win-win.
[5] I certainly don't remember thunderous applause when I finished mowing our lawn in 90 degree heat. I will say though, the best part of mowing a lawn is the silence that follows. There's something deeply profound about the absence of sound once all is said and done. I have fond memories of hearing a distant lawnmower on summer afternoons and the great feeling of resolution when it was Done. There's always a silver lining I suppose.
[6] Light gasoline at your own risk. I've heard that it's not that safe, but you are the Master of your own Fate™.
[7] This is one of my all-time favorite songs so I do hope you give it a listen. Great for nighttime drives too.
Feeling This Way - Kris Allen
Spotify | YouTube
Friendly Sound - Lemaitre
Spotify | YouTube
Inhale - Bryson Tiller
Spotify | YouTube
Home By The Sea - Genesis [7]
Spotify | YouTube
For those of you that have other similar grievances with oft-unnoticed aspects of our society, please respond to this email and let me know. I'm always looking for more things to have an unnecessary opinion on.
See you all next Sunday!
suhaas
————————————————————————————
If you'd like to share this newsletter with your friends, please direct them to this link.
Here are Spotify and YouTube playlists with all the songs so far.
[1] Imagine that for every 13 glasses of water that you drank, a rabid HOA member would pop out of your driveway and smack the 14th glass out of your hand into your lawn claiming that it needed to satisfy the Suburban Gods. Now replace "glasses" with "millions of acre-feet", replace "you" with "USA," and replace "hand" with "system" and what do you get?? A very confusing sentence. But I hope you get my point.
[2] This process is referred to as eutrophication, and it leads to dead zones in water habitats. The overgrowth of algae on the surface prevents sunlight from reaching the depths, leading to a hypoxic (oxygen-depleted) environment, which lays waste to life living beneath. Then once the algae die, bacteria eat up the algae and use up even more oxygen for cellular respiration. Honestly, it's a bad time all around, but at least you learned a new vocab word.
[3] To be fair, entities like our boi Volkswagen didn't actually follow these emissions standards for decades, but the point still stands. At least the standards exist! When do you think John Deere will get sued like the automakers did? Big Grass lobbies too hard for this to ever happen.
[4] Running one of these two-stroke engines for one hour is equivalent to driving 500 miles in a gas-powered car. This should give you more excuses to not mow your lawns and go on roadtrips instead. Win-win.
[5] I certainly don't remember thunderous applause when I finished mowing our lawn in 90 degree heat. I will say though, the best part of mowing a lawn is the silence that follows. There's something deeply profound about the absence of sound once all is said and done. I have fond memories of hearing a distant lawnmower on summer afternoons and the great feeling of resolution when it was Done. There's always a silver lining I suppose.
[6] Light gasoline at your own risk. I've heard that it's not that safe, but you are the Master of your own Fate™.
[7] This is one of my all-time favorite songs so I do hope you give it a listen. Great for nighttime drives too.