I just found out that the guy who makes "Crime Pays but Botany Doesn't" is also and ex NYC bike messenger (like me) and somehow this just ... it explains so much.
Being a messenger causes you to see the city from a rare vantage point. You feel like a blood cell in a vast gothic organism. But it also engenders a kind of fundamental cantankerousness that makes for the strangest kind of naturalist perspective.
"Nothing defines sense of place like the native plants that grow there. We live in an age where place almost means nothing, because in a homogenous consumer culture every place looks the same - just as ugly and bland as the rest. Killing the lawn allows us to restore that sense of place to where we live, but more importantly it allows us to grow the plants that once formed the living skin of the land that we live on, and it allows us to develop a bond and connection with the living world around us, as human beings have done for hundreds of thousands of years."
True that–deeply so. And also shows us the fauna that fed on and pollinated such plants. Living on forgotten margins of our suburban wastelands, they come back and seize any chance such as a rewilded lawn. If only we let nature do its thing.
Over and over we get these wake up calls to stop doing life the way we have always done it. Stop with the extravagant vacations, flying anywhere we want anytime we think of it, stop the environmental abuse of clear cutting because the government allows it, making too much, doing too much, using too much..
The Burning Man thing is just a tiny subplot in the big picture of where humans started a neat little thing, then let it grow out of all proportion and sense. Cutting a few trees to build your own home then cleat cutting a mountainside to pad your bank account. Using a water source for your community then being compelled to sell millions of litres to bottled water companies to make share holders rich.
A huge city in the middle of the desert lit up all night so it shows from space. It would take days to list all the examples. The point is, it is long past time for humans to pull back and find ways to live with less energy.
We don't need all this huge extravagance to live full and satisfying lives. We need to see our grandchildren thrive. We need nature to flourish. We need hope for the future. This is all within our grasp if we knock off the bullshit. It starts with each one of us to stop waiting for the next guy to live with less and set good examples. And preaching to the choir on here as you all seem to understand and agree. But I guess we need to keep spreading the knowledge, ways and means.
I met this beautiful green snake in our backyard yesterday. Nature needs our help. With over 8 billion people on our planet and loss of habitat for so many creatures, they have nowhere to go. Please #ReWild your yard to help your local wildlife! #PlantNatives#NoMoreLawns