Putting threats in perspective

Recently, I got a letter from a lawn care company with "TREAT LAWN THREATS NOW!" splashed across the front of the envelope. It gave my husband and me a good laugh.

Sort of.

Actually, it was more frustrating than anything else.

When it arrived, I had just wrapped up an article on the hygiene hypothesis--the idea that our lives are excessively clean, a lifestyle that is thought to have given rise to an increase in health problems, including asthma and allergies.

Are we overly clean? Probably. And the end of my article addresses that (I'll link to it once it's published). But what really grabbed me as I researched the story is the importance of biodiversity in keeping us healthy.

What does this have to do with that lawn care envelope? The so-called "threats" to the lawn are nothing more than biodiversity. I'll get to why biodiversity is so important in just a second, but first let's look at a couple of specific "threats":

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Dandelions. Every part of this plant is edible (as long as they haven't been "treated", in which case they're toxic as can be). Yes, they spread quickly. If you really don't like their sunny yellow faces in your yard, pull them. But read to the end before you decide dandelions are really enemy number 1.

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Clover. Clover is a legume, a member of the bean family. Like all legumes, clover is capable of taking nitrogen from the atmosphere and "fixing" it, or putting it into a form that plants can use. Clover in your lawn is good because it fertilizes the grass--so you don't have to. This is good for several reasons. (1) It saves you money. (2) Almost all synthetic fertilizers are over-applied, which creates water pollution downstream as the excess runs off. (3) Synthetic fertilizers require fossil fuels, thus contribute to climate change.

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Henbit. Unlike dandelions, henbit is an annual, so each year new plants grow from seeds. It's quick to fill in empty spaces in the lawn and spreads quickly. Henbit is not native to the United States, and many people consider it an invasive weed. But like dandelions, the entire plant is edible. Right now, lawns with dandelions and henbit in them are alive with color.




Most people respond to these dastardly weeds with a spritz of weed-killer. Or better yet, they cover their lawns with pre-emergent in the spring and fall, to prevent those unwanteds from ever growing a cotyledon.

Ever stopped to think about just what those chemicals are? If they're designed to kill plants, what do you think they're doing to you? No, you're not a plant, and you lack some of the cellular structures plants possess. But that doesn't mean these chemicals are harmless. Far from it.

But that's not what this post is about. Eliminating those weeds decreases biodiversity. Living in a house surrounded by a rigorously-maintained carpet of grass is like living in a biological desert. Why? Because different kinds of plants are covered with different kinds of microbes. Without a diversity of plants, we lack a diversity of microbes.

Living in a place devoid of microbes might sound good, but from a health standpoint, it's a problem.

A really big problem.

You see, microbes help us in many ways (probably more than we even suspect at the moment, since this is a fairly recent area of research). They provide us with nutrients, crowd out the germs that can make us sick, and prime our immune systems.

It's looking more and more like we need microbes, specifically the ones found outside in the soil and on plants and in biologically diverse areas. Exposure appears to train the immune system, teaching it what's in the environment--teaching it what poses a threat and what's not worth a response.

People who lack that exposure to a wide range of environmental microbes have immune systems that are overactive. Because those immune systems have never learned what's safe and what's a threat, they are primed to attack everything.

The result: asthma and allergies. And more recently, researchers have learned that other diseases, including multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease, even some forms of depression, may have roots in an improperly-primed immune system, too.

So back to that lawn care letter. What "threat" lurks in my lawn? Certainly not the weeds, nor the microbes with which they associate. That so-called "treatment", on the other hand, just might qualify.

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Happy Earth Day!

In case you missed it, today is Earth Day. Celebrations have been going strong all weekend long. So join in the fun!

What can you do to note just how vital the earth is to our survival? (And it really is, down to the soil you walk on and the critters that burrow in it.) Tons of things! Pick one, try it out for today, then again tomorrow--see if you can keep it up all week. Make it a habit. But at least make an effort of some kind.

Waiting in your car for a while? If you will idle for longer than 30 seconds, turn off the engine. The amount of gas your engine needs to start is equivalent to the amount used in 10 seconds of idling. Not only will it put money in your pocket (since you are burning money when you idle), it will also improve local air quality for all those people who are ...

riding bikes! Why not try a day without a car? I spent five years in Germany without a car (we borrowed one -- once). We walked, biked, rode buses and trains. And let me tell you, we were in good shape. It might have taken a little longer to get places, but we never had to go to the gym (hey look--more money in your pocket!)

Not up for a two-wheeled commute? Try carpooling. Not only will it save you money (around $650 per person if you ride with one other person each work day for a year and up to $1000 per person if you fill the car - source), but fewer cars produce less pollution and reduce your carbon footprint.

Or, if you work from home, maybe you could make some changes there.

Install a rain barrel. Climate change means more extreme weather events happening more often. Ninety degree weather in March? Two feet of snow in April? Yep. This is the new normal. And that means there will be periods of drought intermixed with heavy rain events. Rain barrels are a great way to catch some of the precipitation to use during the dry spells.

Head to your local garden center and ask for regionally native plants for your garden. they'll be better able to tolerate the extremes with a lot less input from you (they usually require little to no fertilizer, no pesticides, and little water other than what falls from the sky). Choose perennials and they'll come back year after year.

Or plant a tree! Trees not only provide shade and cool the local area, they also play a critical role in maintaining the water cycle by drawing water up from the soil and releasing it into the air. This is why rain forests are rainy--the trees literally create rain by constantly releasing huge amounts of water into the air. Areas (like the Middle East) that have long been deforested eventually become too dry to support trees, which leads to further drying and eventual desertification. Don't want your area to become a desert? Take care of those trees.

What will you do to celebrate Earth day? I'm waiting for the weekend to put in dozens of native plants, shrubs and trees. Can't wait to watch my yard transform.

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School visits!

I know, I'm blogging twice in one week. I don't *think* the apocalypse is nigh, but I'm probably not the best gauge.

I've been doing lots of school visits over the past couple of weeks, and I just want to say a big

to Belmont and Morley teachers and librarians for inviting me, and to their fabulous students for being so attentive, asking such great questions, and generally making my job a ton of fun.

From researching and writing non-fiction with fourth and fifth graders to the adaptations of native plants and the extraordinary world of native pollinators with second graders (complete with getting dirty and planting some seeds), it's been an extraordinary series of visits.

Thank you all for letting me share my knowledge and my writing with you! I hope someday soon to return with my books--in addition to my magazine articles--in hand.

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Not so far and away

I recently visited "Away"--that place things go when you put them out with the trash, otherwise known as the landfill. It was a really eye-opening experience, and I highly recommend it. Really. It's not at all what you think it will be, and it makes you rethink what happens to all that stuff you throw out (although I do recommend visiting before summer heat hits).

Think recyclables are reclaimed? Think again. It's too dangerous to go through garbage to remove items. So what goes into the trash truck by and large goes into the landfill. Appliances--"white goods"--are the exception. They are removed and the people who left them at the curb are fined (your trash collector will remember you if you leave out items they're not supposed to take). These are deconstructed to reclaim hazardous materials and scrap.

Everything else? Into the day's "cell" it goes (more on that below).

Perfectly good things, like used furniture, clothes that didn't sell in a big sidewalk sale or clearance (really--stores would rather throw them away than allow people--even the needy--to have them for free), and leftover food.

That last one's a huge problem, because it attracts animals by the thousands. In fact, there are so many birds at landfills, they have to be located at least six miles from the airport.

Gulls and starlings--tens of thousands of them.

In 2007, our local landfill kept track of what went in:

16% was compostable
46% was recyclable

Together, 62% of what people threw away could have been put to better use, cut down on animal pests, and saved money. How much money? Over 16 million dollars of what is thrown away each year (in my small city's landfill alone) is recyclable.

Why does that matter? The energy saved by recycling ONE aluminum can will power a computer for three hours. If you want to save energy, recycle.

Ever wonder what happens to those bags of yard waste you leave out? The leaves wind up in huge rows.

Those white things are the bags the leaves came in.

So do grass clippings. Branches go into a brush pile 1.5 stories tall. Then the leaves, grass, and chipped branches are mixed in massive rows about 8 feet wide by 6 feet tall. A special machine straddles the rows, periodically turning the yard waste from the inside out.

A quarter-mile of compost.

The temperature inside gets up to 140 degrees (F), where the landfill employees try to keep it for at least 3 weeks--compost that hot will kill disease pathogens and weed seeds. Months later, they've got mountains of compost that's pretty much free for the taking.

The landfill itself is a carefully engineered, highly organized structure where the trash trucks dump your garbage. They don't back up to a big hole in the ground and let loose. They have to go to that day's "cell" to dump their load, and someone with GPS marks the location. That way, if they ever need to recover something that was thrown out on a certain day, they know where it is. What could you possibly want to recover from a landfill? A diamond ring, maybe. Or a body (sad but true).

Heavy (100,000-pound) equipment compacts the loads. Their goal is to fit 1700 pounds of garbage into one square yard of space. Think about that for a second--just how much garbage they're cramming into landfills that fill within just a few decades.

If everyone composted and recycled, the life of the landfill would almost triple. That's pretty phenomenal.

Want to do your part? Here are some resources for getting started:

Build a compost bin. This can be as easy or as complicated as you want it to be (we have the three-bin one, which is great because we fill one of the side bins and leave it to compost while we fill the other. We put all finished compost in the middle until we're ready to use it). Not for you? Near the bottom of the link are the two simplest methods.

And in case you're wondering, NO, it doesn't smell. Not unless you put in too many "greens" (grass clippings and kitchen waste) and not enough "browns" (dried leaves, paper bags, sawdust, etc.) As long as you've got a good balance, it just smells like soil.

If you're not recycling, start. Check out the programs in your area. Most offer curbside recycling. To make it easy, look for one that doesn't require you to sort. Some take more than others, so do your research and find the ones that accept more recyclable goods.

Frustrated by the things your local companies won't take? (All that food packaging, for instance?)

RecycleCartons takes paper milk and juice cartons. If they're not available close to you (and you don't mind spending a little money now and then), you can mail your cartons in.

TerraCycle takes all kinds of "unrecyclables." Sign up for a brigade (or two or three). TerraCycle pays for shipping for most brigades. The best part? You earn points that can be donated to your favorite school or charity. Want to have a positive impact on your school? Have them set up a station for families to bring in their packaging and turn recycling into a fund-raiser.

Remember, you don't have to do everything at once: even small steps make a difference. But often people who start with small steps decide to take additional steps once they realize it's really not all that difficult or painful. I hope that's true for you.

What's your first step going to be?

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