Hey team, and welcome back to one5c! There are a lot of things I can’t say enough regarding what it takes to save the world, but here’s one of my favorite refrains: We (every single one of us) need to talk about the climate crisis more. There’s a big risk in letting big to-dos like a fossil-fuel phaseout, EV adoption, and eating less meat fall into the realm of taboo topics. Fortunately, there’s no dearth of openings to broach the subject. Climate is increasingly cropping up in job boards, movie theaters, and even our literal front lawns.
We’ve got a bit of all three of those this week, but I’m especially stoked for what contributor Leslie Horn Peterson’s got to tell y’all about lawns. This week we’re kicking off something for those of you who are tired of the tyranny of the American lawn: a step-by-step, week-by-week guide to sowing a mini meadow of native flora. Share it with someone you know who hates being woken up by mowers on Saturday mornings. —Corinne
WHAT WE’RE INTO THIS WEEK
By Sara Kiley Watson & Leslie Horn Peterson
one5c‘s lawns gone wild
How to start rewilding your lawn today
It’s well established that your lawn of non-native grass is the enemy of local ecosystems and total crap as a carbon sink. But now that spring is upon us, you can go toe-to-toe with the adversary in your own backyard. Welcome to one5c’s Lawns Gone Wild, your step-by-step guide to rewilding a piece of your turf. Between now and May, we’ll be doling out a five-step plan for kicking your grass.
Now is the time to start. Simply retiring your mower during No-Mow May and sprinkling on some native seeds will likely leave you with a bunch of tall grass, warns Doug Tallamy, the University of Delaware ecologist behind Homegrown National Park, an organization that promotes restoring yards to natural landscapes. “That’s a guaranteed total failure, because the lawn will outcompete every one of those tiny little seeds,” he says.
Step one is easy and commits you to nothing: Start collecting cardboard. At the end of March, you’ll cover the area you’re rewilding with those pieces to help choke out the grass (more on that next week!). For now, start eyeing a patch to slaughter—we suggest starting small with a 10-by-10 block—and save any boxes that come in the mail, or hit up places like liquor stores or Costco that usually give them out freely. We’ll see ya next week!
Good read
Where are all the women in green jobs?
We need more green jobs, it’s no secret. But when it comes to what kind of jobs count as “green,” the majority end up being professions that are typically male-dominated—think construction workers, electricians, engineers. A 2019 International Renewable Energy Agency report found that only 32% of renewable energy jobs are held by women. A new dive by Atmos explores the need to reconsider what qualifies as “green jobs” to even the playing field for women and people of color in renewables and beyond. Recalibrating what constitutes work with climate impacts, writes Daisy Clague, can expand verdant vocations to include careers in child care, health care, and social work.
Accountability check
A damning report for reforestation offsets
Good intentions aren’t enough to save the planet, and carbon offsetting projects are the perfect example. A recent report by Human Rights Watch found that the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project began work on their Cambodian reforestation project without consulting with the Indigenous Chong people. The initiative prevented those locals from farming on the land they’ve inhabited for centuries—sometimes even ending in arrests. This is a tale that’s played out over and over again in the offsets market, our pals at Grist write. This new report underscores the importance of aligning conservation with the rights and wishes of Indigenous people, or else it risks doing more harm than good.
Study guide
A new measure of methane leaks
We know methane is bad news, but a new study shows that we are probably underestimating its actual impact. Analysis published in the journal Nature found that methane emissions in six oil and gas hot-spot regions are consistently spurting out more than three times the amount government estimates let on. This new data was collected via sensors on airplanes, but unfortunately, it’ll be pretty darn hard to ever know how much methane is reaching the atmosphere for sure using just one technology, Ritesh Gautam, a lead senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, told MIT Tech Review. Just another reason why keeping a closer eye on leaks via high-flying means like MethaneSAT is so essential.
Mic-drop climate stat
The gasoline equivalent, in gallons, of every American household cutting out two rolls of paper towels a week, based on a life cycle analysis. Want a better option? Check out our guide for kicking this waste-filled cleaning habit.
CONSUME THIS
Dune is a cautionary climate tale
By Shreya Agrawal
Part two of the Dune reboot has been gathering up rave reviews since its release earlier this month. Amid the cheers, multiple takes about the story’s parallels to our own climate crisis have rolled out. This is no accident. In 1957, Dune saga author Frank Herbert visited the coastal dunes in Florence, Oregon, to write an article on how the Department of Agriculture was stabilizing the sand using fast-growing grass. While he never published the article, it sparked a lifelong interest in the dusty ecosystems, and inspired the series. But ecology is only the start of the similarities between the fictional world and our own climate-changed planet.
Water conservation is of utmost priority
On Arrakis, the fictional planet where Dune takes place, water is such a precious resource that some inhabitants have developed systems to extract it from dead bodies. Though things on Earth aren’t that bad, the trend line is troubling. According to UNICEF, around 2 billion people in the world already live in areas with water scarcity. In a few years, this number is expected to more than double. Some of the most water-stressed regions in the world lie in the Middle East, which also inspired Arrakis and its Fremen cultures, but you can see the state of water availability anywhere on Earth via this interactive map.
‘Spice’ is an allegory for fossil fuels
A key factor in the novels and films is spice—and we’re not talking about paprika. Dune’s spice is a valuable commodity as not only a potent mind-altering drug but also as fuel for intergalactic travel. On our own pale blue dot, 95% of worldwide transportation relies on fossil fuels, according to the Rhodium Group. Data from the Energy Institute predicts we will run out of oil and gas by the end of the century.
Arrakis versus the real world
Scarcity begets conflict. A policy brief by the Harvard Kennedy School found that as many as half of interstate wars since 1973 can be linked to oil—and the trend is primed to escalate. We can already see this in the Nile River and Tigris-Euphrates basins, where conflicts have already erupted over water. According to a 2019 study in the journal Nature, as essential resources like food, water, and oil deplete, more conflicts will pop up globally.
Dune presents a world struggling with extreme and debilitating scarcity—one in which people restrain themselves from crying or vomiting in order to conserve water. But Herbert didn’t mean for his work to spur us to leave Earth, but rather to save it. Today, it’s a reminder that we have the tools we need to prevent our planet from turning to dust. Yes, that entails large-scale solutions like a renewable grid and electrified transportation, but it also includes pop culture moments like Dune bringing climate narratives to the masses.
Reducing the amount of food we waste is among the most-impactful things any person can do in the climate fight. Click here for our best strategies and tips.