I’m sure most of you have heard that the National Wildlife Federation, promoters of the backyard habitat certification program, have partnered with Scotts of Miracle Gro and fertilizer and insecticide fame. Two programs are key: increasing wild songbirds (by buying Scotts birdseed) and getting kids back out into nature (where they can absorb all kinds of Scotts products). I apologize for my snark. Go ; read Tallamy’s Bringing Nature Home, and Louv’s Last Child in the Woods. That’s all you need to light a fire under you.
The president of the NWF proclaims lawns as carbon sinks, useful places to help curb global warming. This is a joke. Please, do not dump chemical fertilizer produced with oil from Iran (hyperbole, maybe) on your lawn four times a year, most of which kills good soil bacteria and other life, then runs into our streams and lakes killing aquatic life. Instead, top dress with free compost from your local city. But, that wouldn’t mak ;e any money for Scotts.
Lawns are antiquated dreams of a 19th century American middle class wanting to have small, private Versailles. And the democratic idea of Olmsted, where lawns create a large park bringing us together, is ludicrous–we have fences, I don’t know my neighbors, et cetera. Kids may play in lawns, but they learn nothing about themselves or the natural world, its processes, its lessons. That happens among the brush. It cures ADHD. It speeds a patient’s recovery from surgery. We don’t need more lawns, w ;e need more habitat, shrubs and trees with berries, flowers with insects–insects that are key protein sources for songbird chicks. In Nebraska, we need prairie like we need love and forgiveness and oxygen. Prairies are carbon sinks.
The best article so far, summing up the outrage, the backlash, and the corporate brush off, is right here. (This post also has links to NWF’s Facebook and Twitter feeds if you’re so inclined to say something to them.)
Feel free to check out this link about Scotts new GMO lawn seeds that resist Roundup, so anyone can spray willy nilly, and in the process create super weeds.
Also, Scotts trying to overturn bans on nitrogen lawn fertilizer in Florida during rainy summer months.
Obviously, I don’t agree with NWF–who claim not to support all of the Scotts products, and see this as a way to work from the inside out in a company that wants to change (so why don’t they?). The chemicals we spew on this planet are immense–we really have no idea. From lawns to gardens to big crops, to the feed in cattle and chicken and hogs, to what we put in ;to ourselves and release into the sewers to be “treated” but is never really gone–Tylenol, antidepressants, estrogen, the gmo food we eat. When you refinish a bookcase. When you paint your house. Most anything you toss in the trash.
Now the NWF appears to be supporting (and is financially supported by) a company whose basic raison d’etre is “Buy chemicals. They will save you. Have a spider? Spray it. A brown patch of lawn? Treat it.” We spray before we think, and NWF tripped up. My garden and lawn pests are treated, often within days, by natural predators, all because I invite in those predators with non-lawn habitat.
I have little to no faith in our government. If we want things to change for the better, whether they be environmental or social or economical, the private sector must do it, must turn the tide and create such an uproar the government may finally act. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough money to buy politicians and get stuff done sooner. All I have is this blog. This post. Some anger, confusion, an 00; sadness. Sometimes it gets me hoping through writing, but not today. I am so disheartened. As I will be again, I’m sure. I’m going to go start some liatris seeds.
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