Riding those Mowers into the Sunset

 understand that this shaping up to be a good year for farmers–at least those who had the foresight to plant corn and wheat. My rural friends tell me that, what with all those ethanol subsidies, they’re looking forward to a lucrative harvest for once. But with gas at $1.30 a liter I can’t help wondering how much longer they’ll be able to justify burning up so much of the stuff for no reason at all but the weird pursuit of an even weirder suburban obsession.

Which in turn makes me wonder what we’re going to do–once folks are forced by common-sense economics to park those gas guzzling mowers–with all that acreage of lawn? I suppose one possibility is to convert it back to hayfield and mow it with the big tractors instead of the little ones. But that won’t help much with the appearance of things, so I’ll respectfully suggest another option: Plant trees.

A nice grove of forest around a country house provides shade in the summer (which will surely be welcome when all those greenhouse gasses kick in and temperatures steam upward). I won’t even mention the carbon-capture potential, down the road. That will apply more to our kids than us, but let’s think about it just the same.

For today, I’ll content myself with presenting the practical wisdom of trees over grass. This applies as much to city folks as to my relatives down on the farm. Big tracts of lawn were always kind of dopy, especially these days when you reckon how much energy they take in upkeep. Working on Climate Change for WWF has made me understand that every bit of carbon reduction counts–truly. But with gas pushing a buck and a half a liter, the economic argument only makes the point more forcefully.

by Scott Gardiner