See, it's possible to
have a pretty yard in southern Arizona without draining precious
fluid out of the aquifer and damning the rest of us to a slow death
from thirst. What a charming arrangement of indigenous cactus and
gravel. You wouldn't think plants and rocks by themselves would be
so aesthetically pleasing, but the proof is right there for all to
see. That is the way you landscape when water is at a premium. It's
like Frank Herbert's Dune, but with tasteful yards.
I don't know what this
person is thinking. Grass lawns are so uncommon in Tucson they stick
out like canker sores. I can't help but think this is kind of a
“fuck you” to everyone who bothers to landscape responsibly.
What does this prove, exactly? That you're an arrogant asshole? In
western Washington state where I grew up, you get to have grass.
Hell, try not having grass. It overwhelms everything like a
green disease. But in southern Arizona? A grass lawn says you're
ignorant, obstinate, and functionally irrational. Next they'll be
trying to put artificial snow on the mountains to bring in more skiing.
Water waste is a big
part of the culture of southern Arizona. Tucson has several golf
courses, all of them suitably green and much too big. I don't grudge
people the right to play golf if they want to, I just think they
should do it somewhere else. Like, where grass grows more or less
naturally, and doesn't require the constant use of extremely limited
water resources. It's stupid and selfish, but I know all too well
that calling people that won't stop them from doing it.
People want what they
want, even if they can't really have it and it isn't any good for
them. It's what many of us think the American Dream is: having
anything and everything, with no upward limit. But you're not
supposed to have everything you want. That's the way a spoiled child thinks. People spend far beyond their means and go into
debt to buy consumer items they don't need and grow bored with.
We've become so obsessed with consumption that we've now fetishized
eating; there are a couple of popular TV networks devoted to it.
Who hasn't watched the guy on Man Vs. Food shovel meat and
cheese into his face until his kidneys shut down? When you think
more about food than you do about your blood sugar, you have a
problem.
Most of us are guilty
of being wasteful. Do I shut off the water in the shower while I'm shampooing my hair? No. Well, sometimes, but mostly no. Do I
occasionally use paper towels instead of cloth? Yes. But I'm trying
to do better, as I think a lot of us are in many ways. The
wastefulness I see in Tucson is, as many have become aware in recent years, endemic
to modern civilization as a whole. But while alternative energy
resources might help us cut back on the use of fossil fuels, there's
nothing that can replace water in the human diet. Once it's gone
from a region, it ain't comin' back. It doesn't rain much in the
desert, and I don't see a lot of effort in southern Arizona to create
reservoirs from captured rainwater. What we have is limited, and we
have to be smarter about how we use it, and how to prevent a disaster
when it does eventually run out for good.
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