@stux I can't believe Denver pumps water across the Continental Divide and then just dumps it on lawns...

@stux I grew up in an area with large sod farms. They were right next to produce crops. The whole area is one of the largest drains on the water supply but is also one of the largest suppliers of tomatoes and greens in the country. The sod farms in the area have shrunk over the last few decades.

@stux I am very okay with that idea.

@stux They just need to come up with a way to make it illegal to water your lawn. If it burns, it burns. As for having no lawn, those of us in rural areas tend to like them as it makes a buffer to keep the wildlife a little further away (not that the deer care). But it at least allows us to see what's out there before we let the pets outside. We mow about 3 of our 10 acres, the rest I brush hog a few times a year to keep it as field rather than have it go back to being scrub.

One massive problem I have with this framing is that environments are local, and California has a bad habit of exporting its local regulations to the rest of the world as if the rest of the world has the same local environmental issues that California has.

Water is scarce in the desert they've built the southwest on. So they should in fact save water, and it's pretty absurd shipping water across the country to grow it. Practically speaking, water isn't really a renewable resource in these locations given how the water gets there.

But the world isn't the southwestern US. In many places, water is a renewable resource, and a virtually endless one. In the southeast, the weather is humid and there's high rainfall. In fact, early on in American history, malaria was a huge issue in the southeast because the wet humid conditions are optimal for mosquitos.

So just as it would be absurd to enforce an air conditioner ban in Texas just because Alaska has no need for air conditioners, it would be absurd to enforce water conservation in Florida just because Nevada has water shortages.

Environmental stewardship isn't a blanket you can just lay over everyone the same and expect it to make the same sense. You need to do the work to figure out what your local environment needs, and what's going to be helpful and what's going to be hurtful. Historically speaking, environmental engineering efforts done naively have caused huge problems, including introducing invasive species into areas that didn't have them before, or wiping out species that were thought of as pests that turned out to be essential to the ecosystem.

@stux To answer the question "Should grass be banned":
No, because native grasslands are important to many ecosystems.
But use of non-native species in lawns and public spaces, and monstrosities like golf courses absolutely should be.

@stux hell no, because having grass in middle of the desert was promised for many americans.

@stux those lawns are ridiculous, as bleak as “grass” texture in AutoCAD.