Prairie Works

The following article was recently published in the Freeport Journal Standard.

By Cory Ritterbusch – Today, it seems that each decision that you face as a consumer is met with an option to be “green” or even greener. From our cars to our laundry detergent, no product is without providing levels towards decreasing our carbon footprint. Some choose to ignore these options, some choose one and some go all out. This time of year a common debate, mostly for seasonal fun, is to determine what the “greenest” Christmas tree is. Traditionally this has been straightforward; Real trees versus artificial trees. This challenge always ends with a lopsided victory by the real tree. However, as we look at ‘real’ Christmas trees it’s easy to see many handicaps revolving the industry’s consumptive process. Regular inputs include herbicides, fuel, dyes and even plastic packaging. Several years ago I challenged the notion of buying a manicured, sometimes dyed green, non-native tree species, sometimes genetically modified that are trucked in from hundreds of miles away. My concern was due to an historical look at our area’s residents on a radio program.

A few years ago I was listening to Gordie Kilgore’s popular series From the Riverbank broadcasted on KDTH out of Dubuque, IA. In this particular segment Gordie described Christmas as it was at the turn of the last century. He mentioned the residents of the Tri-States used the Red Cedar tree as decorated Christmas trees. This interested me and it necessitated more research. I found that The National Christmas Tree Association, to my surprise, lists Red Cedar as the 6th most popular Christmas tree used in America. However, they are not used in homes here in the Midwest. The tradition continues today in the South but other varieties of trees started being favored here in the Upper Midwest two generations ago. This is unfortunate.

Red Cedars along the road side

The Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana) is one of the most widespread trees in North America. It is found in every single state east of the Rockies. Being the only common native “pine” tree, Red Cedars were decorated for Christmas in area homes beginning with pioneer settlers and continuing well into the 1900s. It made a nice Christmas tree but went out of style probably due to new styles being introduced.

The Red Cedar is an invasive plant in many situations here in the Upper Midwest, invading fields, pastures, rocky slopes, fence lines and road sides. Considered by farmers as nuisance trees and by ecologists, such as myself, an invasive weed that can overtake a natural area.. With such a locally plentiful supply and the need to remove Cedars from natural areas, it sounds like a win-win situation to me. Here we have an opportunity to create a demand for unwanted trees. Utilizing invasive plants in this manner is a great way to achieve widespread sustainability. Today, 21 million Christmas trees are sold each year and are trucked into sales lots from far away.

Our Future Christmas Tree

Dragging the Cedar to the Road

Since I made the realization that the Red Cedar can be a suitable Christmas tree, my family has invited the Red Cedar into our home each year to spend the holidays with us. A little scraggly? Sure. But with a little trimming it can be turned into an attractive tree. After the lights and ornaments are on and the tree is fully decorated, the Red Cedar looks like a regular tree, smells like a regular tree and can stand amongst the family’s gifts, just like the Blue Spruces and Douglas Firs. The cost to us is the cost of fuel to get it, which is always low since the tree is so widespread. Usually, this comes with a thank you from the landowner who was happy to see it go.

Our Cedar Tree at Home

In fact it is rather fun to go out and hunt for the suitable tree like our great grandparents would have 100 years ago. There are no shopping lanes full of identical trees with this approach. Each cedar tree you see is unique and finding the right one remains as a source of pride for the rest of the holiday season, after you drag it back to the road. Next year a bird will drop a berry to seed a new one and start the process over again, not a tractor. It is also fun to keep your eyes open over the course of the year for the winner that will end up in your house.

So, if you are going to be green by choosing a tree, make it a real one. If you are going to be really green, make it a Red Cedar.  As far as Christmas trees go, Red is the greenest of them all.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

http://www.christmastree.org/trees/ered_cdr.cfm National Christmas Tree Association description of Red Cedar

http://dnr.wi.gov/invasives/fact/redcedar.htm Wisconsin DNR Invasive Plant Listing

Happy Earth Day, everyone! 

Since its inception in 1970, Earth Day has grown into a celebration of the masses and is the one “holiday” that is celebrated by people of all races, religions, countries and beliefs around the world. We all have an impact on the environment. The goal of Earth Day is to raise awareness of the options that we have in order to reduce that impact.

During the past year, I have been involved in a discussion group, hosted by the diligent Dan Wenny. We met monthly on Sunday afternoons. The goal was to analyze household carbon footprints and to assist the other five households in the group, in reducing theirs. We traded tips, advise and took our carbon footprint numbers into an analytical process. Our carbon footprint was established using this calculator: Carbon Footprint Calculator 

The book, Low Carbon Diet,  was given to each of the households to guide us through the process. 

We all had a fun time discovering our habits and lifestyles and realized how they effect our footprint. Analyzing these numbers is a staticticians dream. As you would imagine, housholds with homes with higher square footage and housing more people resulted in the highest footprints. The average carbon footprint in the United States is around 55,00 pounds. In Germany it is 27,000 and in Kenya it is 400.

My houshold’s largest comsumptives were car mileage and water useage. This year we are attempting to reduce those two numbers, and chip away at the others, to give us a footprint of 30,000 carbon pounds next year. A simple Excel spreadsheet can assist you in keeping on track.

This is certainly a fun and engaging way to become more aware of your impacts on the environment. This next year we will become a group host and will help 5 other housholds reduce their carbon footprints. 

There are also many more decisions that can be made that the carbon calculator does not take into account, such as: Eating foods that are locally produced, purchasing used rather than new, buying goods that utilize environmentally friendly processes and of course landscaping with native plants.

Here are some Earth Day links:

http://simplylocalfood.com/ Local Food Group in Northwest Illinois

http://www.green-living.com/ Green Products

http://www.prairieworksinc.com/2008/04/22/earth-day-2008/  Last year’s Earth Day post

My name is John Tolva. Normally I blog here, but I’m privileged to help kick off 2009 with a post on Prairie Works. Thanks, Cory.

Let me note outright that I’m not an ecologist or a naturalist or even very environmentally-savvy, but I am working on it and it seems to me that restoration ecology, the focus of Prairie Works, is a useful way of thinking far beyond its own application.

Malcolm McCullough, professor of architecture at the University of Michigan and one of the leading proponents of place-based interaction design, ends his fantastic 2004 Digital Ground with this historical blurb:

The expression going native apparently originated in nineteenth-century India …. [I]t began as a description of Englishmen wearing loose-fitting pajamas in public. This sensible adaptation to the sultry climate was seen as a token of deeper assimilations, particularly intermarriage, which the expression came to represent. Such practices were common enough amid mercantile colonization in the eighteenth century, but as foreign traders became rulers, the accompanying social tensions made assimilation taboo. Thus to the imperial British of the nineteenth century, “going native” was a crime. It represented a lapse of discipline and a descent into chaos.

This taboo pervades American culture today. To “go native” is to go niche, to be deliberately different. However logical it may seem, going native rubs up against one’s own cultural sensibility — and usually loses.

But here’s the thing: going native is nothing more than letting context drive design. When an industrial designer goes to the factory floor and interviews workers about how the process works, that’s context driving design. When a mobile phone maker spends time in a rural southeast Asian village watching how people communicate, that’s context driving design. And it all yields the very best, most sustainable products.

It doesn’t often happen this way, of course. Design itself in the west is a semi-sanctified endeavor. The artist receiving divine, solitary inspiration: this is a myth that won’t die. (It may work for fine art, though you can argue that there’s no such thing as an artist immune to external influence.) Nothing happens in a vacuum.

William Morris said “you can’t have art without resistance in the materials” and he wasn’t talking about hitting a knot while whittling. Resistance here is merely constraint on free-form design and almost always a good thing. You may not produce a photo-realistic drawing with most of your crayon box broken, but you’ll certainly have to work harder. And hard work usually pays off.

So how does this relate to restoration ecology? Well, the living world itself is the world’s longest-running design charrette and if it and its engine of creation known as evolution have taught us anything it is that constraint over time produces the most lasting products. (Also, at least one pretty engaging game.)

The natural environment has for most of evolutionary history been the constraint under which life’s creative experiment has been run. Climate, geography, predators, food availability — all are pressures that snap the crayons in the box, factors that have culled the palette of what would have otherwise produced an infinite and totally unsustainable variety of life.

Luckily, the world is a harsh place. Just to survive is amazing, but to produce something beautiful or unique is astounding. Evolution is the perfect marriage of an indefatigable artistic drive and an unrelenting set of constraints. You could say that neither “wins” (an equilibrium, if punctuated) — or that they both win, always.

But that’s only in the scenario where naturally-produced constraint is the sole factor. And that, of course, has not been the case since evolution’s Mona Lisa — homo sapiens — slyly smiled its way onto the scene.

You might argue that human constraint is a natural constraint too. And I’ll buy that to a point. But the scale and scope of the impact of human beings on evolution — both negative (like pollution) and positive (like conservation) — vaults it into a new classification in my opinion.

For one, human behavior introduces all kinds of new variables into evolution’s experiment (e.g., the Aral Sea desertification). But more importantly, our impact on the natural world has divorced our adaptive behavior from natural constraint. Technology (or tool-making, something that makes us human in the first place) has greatly mitigated the effect the natural environment has on human behavior. People rarely need to go native.

Yes, when it is raining out you’ll grab an umbrella. Yes, when there’s a hurricane headed your way you’ll (usually) get the hell out. And it is true that human intelligence makes it impossible to conceive of a planet where we don’t modify our behavior in response of the environment.

Yet, it is the little things that add up. I think we can all agree that detonating nuclear bombs is a negative influence of human behavior on the natural order. But what about suburban lawns? How many people know how much water and gasoline they take to maintain and how many species native to the environment they simply cannot sustain? And this is merely the example most pertinent to restoration-based landscaping.

The point is merely this: natural constraint never goes away. The environment, the sum of natural phenomena, will always trump human artifice. Nothing built lasts forever. And since neither are we humans going away (fingers crossed), it is in our best interest to figure out how to balance this constraint with our own needs. We need to learn how to go native intelligently.

I’ve written previously about how I think Africa is a model here. Most Africans don’t have the ability to live beyond the constraints that the environment puts on their behavior. To be sure, this is the source of much woe and privation in Africa. But conceptually — consumption in line with an environment’s ability to sustain production — it is a behavior well worth imitating. It is, in short, a recipe for innovation.

And that’s why I am fond of my father’s project to return his lawn to native Illinois prairie. Yeah, it looks cool. And we get a visceral thrill of burning it down periodically. But the beauty is that it is a constant reminder of balance between human need (oooh, pretty!) and ecological compatibility. Evolution took a long damn time to figure out which flora and fauna could be successful in the Driftless Area of northwestern Illinois. Why on earth would we think we know better?

Our new prairie is a microcosm of behavioral equilibrium. On one side of the scale is the fact that it isn’t a real prairie, only a human-engineered approximation of one that suffers the challenge of artificially depleted biodiversity (one lawn ain’t gonna make all the native species return, especially if they are extinct) and also the challenge of being a native moat encircling a very artificial human-built house with all its environmental contributions. On the other side is the good news: no watering, no mowing, and most importantly a landscape that once again sustains the native animal life that evolved needing it.

This idea of balance, of “sensible adaptation,” of smartly going native, needs to be scaled up. It needs to inform all our decisions as de facto stewards of the planet. There will always be trade-offs, precisely because humans have extraordinary needs and an extraordinary capacity to make things better. Restoration ecology alone will not save the planet, but the ideas that undergird it just might.

It was 46 years ago this month that the groundbreaking book Silent Spring was published. Written by Rachel Carson , Silent Spring was published in September of 1962 and is credited to starting the modern environmental movement. Rachel Carson, a marine biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, exposed the detrimental effects of the pesticide D.D.T. 10 years after the release of Silent Spring D.D.T. was banned and it served as the catalyst for reviving a struggling Bald Eagle population as well as many other birds.

The book’s title was inspired by the John Keats poem ”La Belle Dame sans Merci“ which contained the lines “The sedge is wither’d from the lake, and no birds sing” spent weeks on the New York Times best seller list, was a ‘Book of the Month’ club offering and was endorsed by then Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas. It spurred many other environmental awareness books and set the tone for an environmental movement. Of course it would come against great critictism. Biochemist and former chemical industry spokesman Robert White-Stevens stated, “If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and insects and disease would once again inherit the earth.” Several industry representatives insisted that Silent Spring was part of a communist plot to ruin U.S. agriculture.

In response to the critictism of Silent Spring, U.S. President John F. Kennedy directed his Science Advisory Committee to investigate Carson’s claims. Their investigation “vindicated” Carson’s work, and lead to an immediate strengthening of the regulation of chemical pesticides. The book stated that uncontrolled pesticide use led to the deaths of animals and especially birds, but also humans. Although some scientists had raised cautionary flags, most americans were unaware of how sythetic chemicals poisoned the environment until Silent Spring. The books obvious passion about the inherit dangers in the excessive use of herbicides and pesticides ignited the imaginations of an attentive audience.

Carson writes: I contend, furthermore, that we have allowed these chemicals to be used with little or no advance investigation of their effect on soil, water, wildlife, and man himself. Future generations are unlikely to condone our lack of prudent concern for the integrity of the natural world that support all life.

Carson passed away shortly after Silent Spring was published in April of 1964. She was granted a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980, had a postal stamp with her image, Time magazine listed her  one of the 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century.

Anyone who participates in annual Bald Eagle watching owes thanks to Rachel Carson and her 46 year old book Silent Spring.

http://www.rachelcarson.org/

http://www.nrdc.org/health/pesticides/hcarson.asp NRDC Article

http://www.reason.com/news/show/34823.html Article written for it’s 40th Birthday

 An interesting exhibit has opened in Chicago this week. It explores the American obsession with lawns. The Notebaert Nature Museum is featuring “Lawn Nation: The Art & Science of the American Lawn” through September 7th. This exhibit dives deep into the lawn’s history in America and why alternatives should be utilized.

The exhibit is the first of its kind and uses a mix of videos, interactive displays, 30 commissioned pieces of artwork and 4 alternative lawns in front of the museum. Curators of the display have dubbed the grass, clover, dandelion mix out front the ‘Freedom Lawn” because of its low maintenance requirements. The press release states that homeowners pour three times more pesticides per acre than industrial farmers and that all lawns put together could carpet the state of Kentucky. I bet this is just a snippet of the wealth of information made available there.

If any of you city dwellers are able to view this exhibit, I would be interested to hear your comments.

If You Go:

Where: Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, 2430 N. Cannon Dr., Chicago

When: Through September 7th.

Cost: $9 for Adults and $7 for Seniors

Details: 773-755-5100 or www.chias.org

Today is Earth Day in the Northern hemisphere. The one day of the year where environmentalists can bask in environmental awareness. Earth Day has been held each year since 1970. It was the brainchild of Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson. Today, it is the only event celebrated simultaneously around the globe by people of all backgrounds, faiths and nationalities. More than a half billion people participate in Earth Day events annually. Each year many events are planned locally to promote sustainability and the cleaning of our land, air and water.

This year, Time magazine printed a special environmental issue to coincide with Earth Day. Its cover article, Why Green is the new Red, White and Blue digs deep into the current political status of the environment including some important information on the Lieberman-Warner Bill. Of course buying this issue at the newstand would be at the detriment of trees and would just help the logging industry. So, I suggest reading the article online here: http://www.time.com/time/

Today for some Green fun, I compiled a list of great Green websites for you to visit and a link to test your ecological footprint:

http://grist.org/ The Colbert Report of climate change

http://www.treehugger.com/ The go-to guide for sustainable living

http://www.realclimate.org/ Climate science from climate scientists (says it all)

http://www.ecorazzi.com/ What celebrities are doing to help the environment

Take the Ecological Footprint Quiz here:

http://www.earthday.net/footprint/info.asp

Happy Earth Day everyone.

Last Saturday, February 2nd, former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz died at 98. Earl Butz was well known by environmentalists and not positively. He became a household name in the mid-1970s for reasons that were also not positive.

An Indiana native and person that Purdue University claims with great pride, Earl Butz was appointed secretary of agriclture in 1971 and carried that role until he was forced to resigned in 1976. During his five-year tenure as Ag Secretary he was responsible for many long-term effects on America.

Destruction of Natural Areas – Butz incensed naturalists by urging farmers to “plant from fencerow to fencerow.” With this implimented, some of our last remnant prairies were plowed, high quality wetlands were drained and thick treelines that served as habitat were bulldozed. This was the last crucial wave in natural area destruction and is still in many people’s memories. Locally, there became a sharp decline in wildlife numbers, mainly among birds.

Agri-business – Butz proclaimed that farming “is now big business” and that family farms must “adapt or die.” These policy shifts coincided with the rise of major agribusiness corporations, and the decline in financial stability of the small family farm. Agri-business was a term coined in the 1980s when the change had taken full effect.

Obesity - With larger quantities of corn being produced, Butz suggested that corn syrup should replace sugar cane. High-fructose corn syrup became the standard and very unhealthy sweetener. In Greg Critser’s 2003 book Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World, Critser points to Butz as the reason for obesity in America. Critser says,”In short, Butz had delivered everything the modern American consumer had wanted. Cheap, abundant and tasty calories had arrived. It was time to eat.”

Outside of the environmental and nutrition circles Butz will be remembered for his controversy. In 1974 he disturbed catholics by making fun of the Pope and in October of 1976 he was forced to resign after making racist comments while on a plane flight. Some say that it prevented Gerald Ford from being elected one month later.

Quite a testement to the power of agriculture in America and probably the only Secretary of Agriclture to ever become a household name…

 “As a society, we are just now beginning to realize the depth of Leopold’s work and thinking.”- Mike Dombeck, Chief Emeritus U.S. Forest Service

Today, January 11, marks the birth of Aldo Leopold (1887). Aldo Leopold was a highly influential environmentalist and is often credited for begining the environmental movement as early as the 1940s. He is a respected scholar, scientist, philiosopher and writer. Leopold influenced the begining of conservation education in schools, developed the first game management plans and his perspective on environemntal thought known as ’Land Ethic’ carved the way for land conservation, restoration ecology, sustainable farming, and proper land management practices in general. During his 61 years he published nearly 500 works including technical reports, speeches, textbooks, newsletters, reviews, and poems. But he is best-known for A Sand County Almanac, essays published 18 months after his death.

Aldo Leopold was born in Burlington, IA and his parents planted a Red Oak to commemorate his birth. His love affair with the outdoors was evident as a child and led him to Yale University School of Forestry, where he graduated with a masters in forestry in 1909.  Following Yale he worked for the U.S. Forest Service for 19 years. He left the Forest Service in 1928 and began doing independent contract work for land owners throughout the Midwest. In 1933 he was appointed Professor of Game Management in the Agricultural Economics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (a first for the nation) and also published the first textbook in Wildlife Game Management. He was involved in the world’s first prairie restoration, now known as Curtis Prairie, at the UW-Madison Arboretum and bought a farm on the Wisconsin River near Baraboo, WI in 1935. At what he referred to as ”The Shack,” Leopold carried out several ecological experiments and it served as the setting for his many essays to come.

In 1941, Aldo began planning for a series of essays to be published to be enjoyed by all americans. Writtten from his “Shack” on his Baraboo farm, this series of essays was accepted for publishing by Oxford Press on April, 14 1948. One week later, on April 21st, Aldo Leopold died while fighting a wildfire on his Baraboo farm. Oxford Press released Leopold’s “Great Possessions” under the name “A Sand County Almanac” in 1949. 

Land Ethic – With over 2 million copies sold and translated into 9 languages A Sand County Almanac it is the most respected book about the environment ever published. Every proffesional conservationist points to this book as a catalyst for thier career, no matter in what capacity they work. The term ‘Land Ethic’ was coined in the final chapter of this groundbreaking book.  Leopold’s idea is that land is not a commodity to be possessed; rather, humans must have mutual respect for Earth in order to not destroy it. He also puts forth the idea that humans will never be free if they have no wild spaces in which to roam. Leopold also states the basic principle of his land ethic as, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” and “The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. The land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.”

Like many pioneers and visionaries, their influence is not entirely appreciated or known until many decades later. It was not until the 1970s that his great book became well known with the begining of environmentalism. Today, the Leopold legacy is still gaining strength. In 2004 the state of Wisconsin declared the first weekend in March as Aldo Leopold days. The Baraboo, WI, “Shack” is a tourist site drawing thousands of visitors a year and recent biographies have elevated his status even further. From a scientific point of view, his approach of looking at all parts of the land as one whole system, and not catagorized into seperate parts, has recently been accepted by academia and is the train of thought now being instilled into conservation scholars today.

Historically, the overall appreciation for Leopold has mirrored society’s overall appreciation for nature. So we can only wish for his popularity to continue…

http://www.aldoleopold.org/  The Aldo Leopold Foundation

http://www.amazon.com/ Buy A Sand County Almanac

http://gargravarr.cc.utexas.edu/chrisj/leopold-quotes.html Excerpts from A Sand County Almanac

http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/about/aldo.htm Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

“An old error is always more popular than a new truth.” -  German Proverb

In 2006 the American lawn reached a higher status among its citizens - it became the country’s largest irrigated crop. Between our golf courses, sports fields, town squares and residential lawns turfgrass now covers an amazing 40 million acres, or 80 percent, of non-farmed land. Once utilized by the rich as outdoor carpet and by atheletes for sport, turfgrass is now the norm for all residential lots, rural or urban, and the maintenance practices that come with it are now the standard protocol.

Lawns have their roots in the gardens of England but it was not until the post-World War II building boom that it reached its full power here in America. At that time, subdivisions sprouted up around major cities, forming suburbs. To match the prestigious look of larger estates, planners designed large lawns to attract clients. Thus, the goal of making private properties park-like began and fences were not erected to allow for open appearences in residential communities.

Although the 1/2-acre area of grass that is carefully manicured by its owner seams rather harmless, it is the large-scale ramifications of millions of such owners that prove to be devastating. In 2005 it took 238 gallons of water per person to irrigate 40 million acres of turfgrass, which are being mowed with 800 million gallons of small engine gasoline and kept green by 70 million pounds of chemicals.  All this costs an estimated 30 billion dollars annually (2005). The effects on water and air quality are staggering as are the 68,000 injuries sustained annually while mowing.  

Martin Quigley, an urban landscape specialist with The Ohio State University states this about lawns: “Turf maintenance is unquestionably the single most labor intensive component of the constructed landscape. Lawn upkeep, though expensive, requires few decisions and little risk. It is not attuned to the peculiarities of individual sites.” Nationwide, the same grass types are used regardless of soil type, climate, topography or regional customs. The turf industry has developed stronger more desirable strains in order to please the 80% of adults that maintain turfgrass.

Oddly enough, lawn care advertising confirms that most residential lawn care is a losing battle against climate, pests, traffic and other variables, unless more efforts, including watering and chemicals, are applied to the cause. The 70 million pounds of chemicals applied to turfgrass annually represent a higher concentration of chemical input than any other form of agriculture worldwide. In Ted Stienberg’s book, American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn, he calls the rise of the lawn “one of the most profound transformations of the landscape in american history.” 

Today, we mow most land that is mow-able and any area that is not mowed is considered “weeds.” Dead spots in lawns are dyed green to disguise imperfections. We spend an average of 40 hours per year mowing or pay services an average of $1,080 to mow for us. We pay higher water bills during hot summer weather to keep the grass alive and we spend used car prices for lawn mowers. Lawn clippings represent the largest agricultural byproduct in the U.S., which could support 20% of our nation’s fuel demands if converted to ethanol (David Blume). The Scotts® Miracle Gro Company (SMG on the New York Stock Exchange) now sells bird seed to supply birds with food that the lawn lacks…Odd indeed.

There are many alternatives to battle this consumptive and environmentally un-friendly practice, including: planting areas with native grasses and flowers, installing ”no mow” turf species such as Buffalo Grass, reducing the amount of lawn that is mowed, or promoting urban planners to develop cluster housing which consolidates housing allowing for more open space. The long term cost savings of utilizing lawn alternatives are staggering and should be encouragement alone. The real benefit, however, lies in the increase of habitat, stabilization of soil, use of local materials and weekends that you don’t have to worry about the lawn.

http://www.cca.qc.ca/pages/Niveau3.asp?page=depliant&lang=eng Interesting article on the history of the lawn

http://ohioline.osu.edu/sc177/sc177_14.html A reported study about the lawn: An Unrequited Love

http://www.epa.gov/greenacres/wildones/handbk/wo8.html The EPA Statement on lawns

There is a new online service created to reduce the amount of catalogs that are sent to American mailboxes. The Ecology Center, National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council have collaborated on the new online consumer service called Catalog Choice. It gives people who shop via catalogs the choice of which catalogs they receive in the mail (and which ones they wish to stop). During the first week of launching the new site, 25,000 people had signed up.

Paper usage has had a huge impact on the environment. Each year, 19 billion catalogs are mailed to American consumers. This uses 53 million trees (between 300,000 and 500,00 acres of land cleared or thinned) which creates 7.2 billions pounds of paper. Processing and transporting this paper results in 5.2 billions pounds of carbon dioxide emissions which equals the emissions of 2 million cars. And it also requires 53 billion gallons of fresh water.

If this new service can lower catalog printing by just 20%, that would be 10 million trees and 100,000 acres of land saved, per year. And, a billion pounds of greenhouse gases reduced.

In its press release, Laura Hickey, senior director for Global Warming Education said  “Every day, millions of unwanted catalogs clog consumers’ mailboxes and are immediately tossed in the trash. More than just an annoyance, they are overflowing municipal waste systems, devouring precious natural resources, and contributing to pollution and global warming.” Hickey notes that unlike other do-not-mail services, Catalog Choice is free. 

Sounds like a great idea and I am sure your mail carrier would appreciate you signing up too.

www.catalogchoice.org Sign up for the new service here

www.papercalculator.org find your impact on paper usage

The Wisconsin State Journal published an article on August 9, about the trend of converting high maintenance turf grass areas into prairies on large corporate campuses. Some of the Madison, WI area’s largest corporations doing just that include American Family Insurance, Alliant Energy and SACO Foods. The article cited the usual benefits, such as bio-diversity and habitat, but also noted that the appeal most often comes down to saving money and the overall bottom line.

Steve Cohan of Full Compass, headquartered in Middleton, WI said the company recouped its initial investment in the first three years due to reduction of turf maintenence. The company spent 30 percent more on the initial prairie installation when compared to turf grass costs but they liked the long-term benefit. Cohan said, “There is something really interesting about having this environment right outside your window. You can look literally four feet out your window and see a hawk in a tree. That’s something you don’t get with a traditional office building with traditional shrubs and a parking lot.”

The Chicago area has been naturalizing its corporate campuses for over a decade now. Some of the most notable projects include: Tellabs, Underwriters Laboratories, Nicor Gas, Prairie Stone Business Park, BP Amoco, WW Grainger and Abbott Labs. Openlands, a conservation organization founded in 1963, established The Corporatelands Program in 2003 to assist businesses with converting from traditional high maintenance landscapes to low maintenence landscapes that utilize prairies and native plants. They host workshops for facility managers to attend and explain the how-tos.

As with many new ideas and products, it is the goverment and corporations that lead the way into making concepts mainstream. Hopefully, we will see this trend continue to trickle down to the private sector.

http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/index.php?ntid=204983 Wisconsin State Journal Article 

http://www.openlands.org/corporatelands.asp Corporatelands Program

The National Audubon Society released a survey in June that our country’s most common bird species are declining at an alarming rate. The data compiled is based on the famous Christmas Bird Count which has taken place every winter for 107 years by us, the citizens. Twenty of our most common birds have declined on an average of 68% - some as high as 80% – since 1967.

Of the twenty common species the Northern Bobwhite has seen the greatest decline at 82% and finishing at number 20 is the Ruffed Grouse at a 54% decline. In between, beloved birds in decline include: Evening Grosbeak, Boreal Chickadee, Meadowlark, Field Sparrow, Grackle, Whip-poor-will, and the Northern Pintail duck.

Why is this happening? Audubon points towards urban sprawl, an increase of invasive species, intensive agriculture practices and habitat fragmentation. Veryln Klinkenborg of the New York Times wrote a great article on the matter a few weeks ago. She wrote, “The Audubon Society portrait of common bird species in decline is really a report on who humans are. Let me offer a proposition about Homo sapiens. We are the only species on earth capable of an ethical awareness of other species and, thus, the only species capable of happily ignoring that awareness. I don’t suppose that most Americans would actively kill a whippoorwill if they had the chance. Yet in the past 40 years its number has dropped by 1.6 million. We look around us, expecting the rest of the world’s occupants to adapt to the changes that we have caused, when, in fact, we have the right to expect adaptation only from ourselves.”

The report certainly has offered a lot for analysis and maybe not just about birds. Read the full report here: http://www.audubon.org/

We recently lost a great voice for and pioneer of native plant advocacy. The environmental First Lady was instrumental in putting native plants to use for reasons other than ecological restoration. The Beautification Act of 1965 was residue from her efforts to use plants on a large scale to fight pollution, renew urban areas, increase mental health and create a healthier highway infrastructure. Because of this bill, we now use 0.25 – 1 percent of funds allocated for highway landscaping for native trees, shrubs and plants of local orgin. After her white house years she moved her efforts to Texas where they set the benchmark for the use of native plants in a highway system. Lady Bird always spoke of the ecological and engineering purposes as benefits of native plants and their great beauty as a bonus. Texas is now known far and wide for the stunning color in its highway system when plants, such as Blue Bonnets, are in bloom. She eventually founded the National Wildflower Research Center in Austin in 1982. Lady Bird’s passion and ability to obtain results is respected by all conservationists today; she will be missed. Visit her research center here:  http://www.wildflower.org/