AP: Actor Ed Begley Jr. shows the sprinkler control system that electronically checks the forecast and automatically shuts down if it's supposed to rain, at his home in the Studio City district of Los Angeles Thursday, May 15, 2008. Begley and his neighbor Bill Nye, the host of the educational series 'Bill Nye, The Science Guy,' who moved in two doors away two years ago, are locked in a friendly but serious eco-battle of keeping up with each other. The two moderately famous and occasionally geeky environmentalists vie to see who can leave the smaller carbon footprint. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
Y'KNOW, I'm just spit-ballin' here, Ed, but maybe if you weren't trying to raise a large grass crop in the fucking desert you could avoid pouring water onto the ground altogether, forecast be damned.
i think i saw a 'living with ed' episode (don't ask) where he was looking at some sort of artificial grass for this very reason, but i think his wife didn't like the idea and/or aesthetics of it.
ReplyDeleteahh, well, c'est la vie.
Um, before you get harsh on Ed remember that in many cities (including mine) there are ordinances that say you MUST have a green front lawn (or other landscaping deemed appropriate by the authorities). Fines in my city are over $750 for any offense, and you must remedy the situation as well or receive another citation. BTW, I live in California, which is in a drought. And they only stopped giving citations last week, due to being shamed into dropping the citations by the local newspaper.
ReplyDeleteThere are alternatives, though, to turf grass, aren't there, except in the most anal communities? I like the scruffy nativist style, myself. :)
ReplyDeleteI honestly think we who live in arrid hot climates need to rethink the whole pavillion in a lawn approach. I would rather see houses with much shallower setbacks, even solid front walls with landscaping limited to a sheltered courtyard. Kinda like in Spain or Mexico. California is not Surrey...or New England.
...in many cities (including mine) there are ordinances that say you MUST have a green front lawn (or other landscaping deemed appropriate by the authorities)
ReplyDeleteWell, something between 40-60% of water usage in this country goes to lawns. And god knows how much of that is wasted, since grass is a shallow-rooted plant, but grass growers have been convinced it should be watered like a stand of corn.
I have no idea whether he's facing that kind of draconian suburban lawn enforcement you report, but if he is he ought to use a little of his celebrity environut cachet to fight it, since even if he's minimizing his own water usage (unlikely; he's apparently watering regularly, except when the rain does it for him, and not watering the minimal amount to keep some state-required lawn alive), the people around him probably aren't.
I can't help it. I'm pro-geek, and at least they're trying. Personally, I'll save my hating for the golf courses. How much of that 40-60% goes there, do you think?
ReplyDeleteI've been having a running battle with the fuckwit homeowner association here for at least seven years about going eco-turf. So far, I've managed to convince them to stop annually napalming the cattails their flagrant lawn fertilizer use encourages in the pond--not because I'm pro-cattail but because I hate watching them stomp on and take weed whackers to the frog, salamander and snake population out there--, and to adjust the sprinklers to water only at night and not the sidewalks anymore. It's a pretty pathetic record, but then again I haven't killed anyone yet.
It never fucking rains here. Never. Except on hills that have just been burned, so that they can collapse. So how does he even know that thing works?
ReplyDeleteI live in the northeast where it rains A LOT. We have bushes and seashells coating our postage stamp. Oh and we grow grass (the long tall swamp kind) in large terra cotta pots. What is with the infatuation with lawns that look like golf courses? And, for that matter, what is the infatuation with golf all about?
ReplyDeleteWe get 120 inches in Hilo, Hawaii, so needless to say I never water our lush lawn. But on the other side of the island, which gets as little as five inches a year, they use a lot of water for stupid golf courses at the overpriced resorts and condo complexes.
ReplyDeleteIf I may venture a generality, I'd say that Hilo is the sweetest town in all Hawai'i. (I'd say, in all aloha, "sweetest little town" but Hilo folks wouldn't like it much.)
ReplyDeleteAloha to you, Hattie.
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