Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you elaborate why that is?
They can run around on it, play ball games with their mates, you can put down a slip 'n slide in the summer, there's room for a trampoline etc. etc.
[deleted]
Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’
51–60 of 330 posts
Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’
#52Why do lawns even factor into the equation when the reality is that industry, farms, etc. own the majority of all water usage? I live in a desert area and hate seeing lawns watered in the middle of the summer but its impact seems trivial. Agriculture is a major user of ground and surface water in the United States, accounting for approximately 80 percent of the Nation's consumptive water use and over 90 percent in ma…
> ... would be to cut out bovine meat.
The somewhat ludicrous figure provided at that link - of 15,415 litres of water per kilogram of meat - is oft' cited by vegetarians and vegans, but doesn't bear scrutiny.
CAFOs are undeniably bad for everyone (the land, the animals, and the consumers) and while they doubtless skew the stats, those grossly artificial environments are clearly not locking up 15 tonnes of water per kilogram of meat.
Something closer to natural - say pastured raised cattle - are using much more reasonable volumes of water, especially at low stocking rates. But the whole 'using water' claim is muddied. The water the animal drinks passes through it and into the ground. Irrigation of the pasture, if performed, can't be thought of as 'lost' water either, as some will go underground, some will be lost as transpiration / evaporation, and some will be stored in the plant to then be consumed by the animal (qv).
> Why do lawns even factor into the equation when the reality is ...
Because lawns are, for most people, for most of the time, pointless wastes of land, water, pesticides, and energy. There are myriad (good) reasons to surrender some lawn and instead grow some of your own food -- TFA just pointed out one of the less obvious ones.
Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’
#53Are scientists often in a position to provide advice with holistic value? I'm usually quite skeptical of advice like this when it comes from someone who is laser focused on a specific domain.
Who can provide holistic advice then? Maybe a management consultant, or a frequent reddit user? Plenty of scientists know about things outside their laser-narrow domain.
Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
setbacks are about reducing FAR so people need to buy a lot more land than they need to build a home to live in. It helps keep property values high and land as a scarce resource.
That is a consequence, not the intention. I don’t see how you can avoid street canyons otherwise.
What is wrong with that?
Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
My family never put anything on the, eh, 3 acres of grass I regularly had to mow as a kid. It wasn't perfect, nobody cared. There were dandelions, there was some clover. If you can bear to tolerate the fact that your lawn isn't going to look like a putting green, you can do literally nothing but cut it and perhaps water it if your climate requires and be done with it. If there are plants you don't want in your lawn,…
What's sad is dandelions are neither ugly nor bad for your lawn. They feed bees and the tap roots draw nutrients from deep in the soil, which also benefits the grass.
Dandelions are definitely ugly. The problem is that they're weeds: they will grow with abandon and fill up every single possible spot on your lawn, crowding each other out in their rabid attempts to get some delicious sun. Mow them down and you're just acting as an evolutionary selection filter for short, creeping dandelions instead. It only takes a month or two of mowing to end up with a totally different, fully adapted short dandelion population. Leave your lawn fallow for a few months and you'll instead get 6ft tall monsters.
The infection needs to be removed and defended. Entire neighbourhoods need to work together on this; one lazy house is enough to poison the block.
Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's sad is dandelions are neither ugly nor bad for your lawn. They feed bees and the tap roots draw nutrients from deep in the soil, which also benefits the grass.
As the parent of a toddler I love dandelions because he loves to pick them and blow their seeds into the air.
Your neighbours may not appreciate this as much as you do. I have my toddler gather me the flowers pre-puffball as bouquets for Mummy which helps prevent them from getting a chance to go to seed.
Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you elaborate why that is?
A friend once explained that boys are like dogs. They need exercising twice a day. A back yard and a ball are sufficient for that. A paved area is more likely than lawn to provide yet more trips to ER.
Isn’t that true of kids in general?
Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you elaborate why that is?
A friend once explained that boys are like dogs. They need exercising twice a day. A back yard and a ball are sufficient for that. A paved area is more likely than lawn to provide yet more trips to ER.
Ehhhhh. I disagree. That's too much of a generalisation. Different people, different interests. Many kids do like to exercise. Many prefer staying indoor.
Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lawns are aesthetically pleasing to humans. It has been widely observed that humans, having adapted to life in the African savannah, have a tendency to turn everything into an idealised version of their natural habitat. Regents Park, or your local golf course, is like a superstimulus version of the nicer parts of prehistoric Kenya. Lots of nice green grass; not too long, indicating grazing animals nearby. Trees scatt…
Presumably you also live in a cave and hunt animals for your dinner. Meanwhile the rest of us have realised we can actually ignore our primal instincts that serve no beneficial purpose and use our brains to figure out something better.
Pretty much everything you find aesthetically pleasing is a primal instinct. The high-and-mighty-ness of this comment really beggars belief. I hope that somebody like yourself could confidently say you’ve never wasted your time on something frivolous like companionship or sexual needs.
Re: Renowned Entomologist Says ‘Get Rid of Your Lawn’
#60Are scientists often in a position to provide advice with holistic value? I'm usually quite skeptical of advice like this when it comes from someone who is laser focused on a specific domain.
Who can provide holistic advice then? Maybe a management consultant, or a frequent reddit user? Plenty of scientists know about things outside their laser-narrow domain.
Why would you consider there to be a need for experts to provide holistic advice at all? It’s pretty obvious when somebody is trying to give you advice outside of their (often narrow) domain of expertise. Scientists do it all the time. So do software engineers. I’m sure we’ve all been in, or party to, a situation where an engineer is frustrated that the business is not taking their very sound technical advice, somehow oblivious to the possibility that the problem they’re concerned with may not matter to the business at all.