This article began in 1973 as 14 reasons not to mow, when in response to news that our lawnmowier had killed a toad we stopped mowing and were subsequently cited for violating a local ordinance. The article has gradually grown to 66 reasons. In 2021, the UK sponsored a NoMow May, to allow
at least part of a lawn to grow unmolested, fostering wildflowers to
sustain the threatened bee population. With climate extremes
threatening the very survival of the planet, every leaf is a precious
oxygen creating rain invoking mini air conditioner.
Sometimes the most powerful actions involve doing nothing.
Mowing lawns and fields hastens global extremes by cutting down the sapling trees
which when grown invoke rain, create oxygen, muffle noise, provide free food, shelter
and shade. make winters warmer and summers cooler.
Unprecedented record breaking heat and tornadoes around the world have occurred in 2013 through 2016... as temperature changes which varied 100 degrees or more show the increasing weather instability created by record breaking destruction of greenery for cattle ranches, roads, buildings and illegal war bombings. In February of 2015 at least 75 cities in the US.established new records for cold and summer has created new heat extremes. New areas of drought in Australia, California, thousands of fires in NW Canada, hundreds of fires in Alaska, many more in the West US. Around the world these extremes are happening.
Both freezing and baking are created by tree destruction.
This decade has been the hottest year in 130 years since temperatures were recorded.
This decade has been the hottest year in 130 years since temperatures were recorded.
How to cool the earth:
1. save trees in many ways
2. avoid deforesting products: wood, newspapers, buy recycled, cotton, or rice paper
3 .... fruit is best for the planet, animal flesh is worst
4 Every blade of grass is a mini air conditioner..
5 Every tree invokes rain by evaporation which creates mist and then clouds
Nonmowing turns empty lots
through time into forests
Sometimes the most powerful actions
involve inaction
Every year zillions of tree seedlings are shredded by mowers,
harvesters, and prevented from reforesting billions of acres in the world.
In 2003 through now, the world has seen drought, floods, famine, fire, mudslides, hurricanes, tornados and other disasters created by the unprecedented destruction of trees around the world. Trees are nature's weather stabilizers. We need trillions of trees.. new trees.
UN agencies have said reduced or ended lawnmowing and treecutting will slow down global heating. The 1990's EPA published legal briefs available without cost to
those fighting compulsory mowing ordinances. Highway departments have found that bushes are better than mowed median strips.
The government of Thailand has banned logging.
GROW FREE FOOD .PREVENT MOWER ACCIDENTS .PROTECT SAPLING TREES .CREATE OXYGEN .SAVE TIME . CONSERVE FUEL .SAVE MONEY .GUARD FREEDOM .INVOKE RAIN. STABILIZE WEATHER PATTERNS . STOP MUDSLIDES .BUFFER NOISE. PREVENT FLOODS .FOSTER WILDLIFE HABITAT . FILTER AIR
Not in the order of importance) In the last few years the EPA has joined the environmental groups promoting nonmowing. Their site ishttp://www.epa.gov/ .. type in 'natural landscaping' in search tobring upmany sites. The Green Party http://www.greens.org/ and many Libertarians also support nonmowing. In June of 2002, NPR reported that the Congressional Black Caucus has a better record than either white Democrats or white Republicans in environmental issues.
I: ENVIRONMENTAL (THE REDUCTION OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANIPULATION)
1. REFORESTATION When one stops mowing, land becomes meadow and then thicket and then woods. reforesting the world.
2. OXYGEN CREATION This extra greenery creates oxygen.The average tree creates 5 pounds of oxygen daily.
3. AIR PURIFICATION More greenery purifies the air through leaf filtration a.particulate matter b. car fumes c. noxious gases d. other airborn toxins. Removal of carbon dioxide by plants ameliorates pollution.
4. TEMPERATURE STABILIZATION TO OFFSET GLOBAL WARMING Warms the world's winters and cools the summers. There is a 50 degree difference between 70 degree equatorial rainforest and 120 degree desert. Each blade of grass is a little air conditioner. A world without drought, flood, famine, freezes, and killer heat can be eliminated by literally covering the world with trees.
5. RAIN INVOCATION Greenery calls down rain. Bayard Webster of the NY Times wrote that each mature tree evaporates 40 gallons of moisture daily (much greater amounts for older trees.) All greenery is involved in the raincycle.The drought and consequent starvation in N. Korea was related to the cutting of nearly all trees for fuel.
6. DEW PRESERVATION More plants preserve dew. Not only do greenspires and leaves act as masts around which dew can gather, but the more greenery the longer the dew lasts.
7. NOISE BUFFERING Leaf volume weaves a noise buffer which screens out unpleasant traffic
8. NOISE PREVENTION Ends the peace-fracturing sound of the lawnmower. Some communities have noise ordinances which prevent mowing during normal sleeping hours. Some have banned mowers and blowers altogether. Misophonia is a term for sensitivity to loud noises, but virtually everyone but the hearing impaired are sensitive to loud noises.
9. VISUAL BEAUTY Multiplies the beauty of diversity In unmowed meadows can be thousands of plant varieties... In a monocrop of grass only 1.
10. FRAGRANCE Multiplies the fragrance in the air.
11. HEALING GREEN Nonmowing creates optical healing bycreating more greenery. Research has proven that looking on the jadeand forest greens reduces heartbeat and creates peace.
12. LANDFILL ECONOMY Letting lawns grow wild reduces pressure onlandfills..by not adding leaves to overburdenedsystems (and saves the fuel and wages of collectionreleasing workers for the labor of their hearts). (NPR Sept 1:methanegases leach from landfill through water into basements) As the worldevolves away from treekilling, sawdust piles which are a byproductof the lumber industry will be removed, making the earth safer forchildren.
13. FUEL CONSERVATION Conserves fuel a. unused inunused mowersb. As evergreen trees break cold winter winds andshroud dwellings they are natural insulation.
14. HYDROCARBON REDUCTION Prevents hydrocarbon moweremission from polluting the air. Many media outlets are passing ontheEPA recommendation that lawns not bemowed when there is great humidity and heat. Hydrocarbons createozonealerts.
15. CARBON DIOXIDE Greenery which takes in carbondioxide and breathes out oxygen reduces gases toxic to humans.
16. TORNADO PREVENTION Unstable heat is the mainfactor in tornados. Greenery which reduces the temperature 30 degreesin forest areas prevents tornados.
17. MUDSLIDE PREVENTION The roots of living plantsabsorb great amounts of water and prevent mudslides.
18. FLOOD PREVENTION A. On river banks and everywhere, tree, plant, bush,and vine roots are flood preventers. As David Kidd of Canton, planter of more than a million trees has stated, the bigger and older the tree the more work it does. (The 900 year old oaks with their huge diameters are a lot more precious to Mother Earth than skinny young trees. B. Ohio Public Radio David C. Barnett Sept 9th: reported on reduction of impervious surface by reducing concrete and adding greenery. (The hard asphalt, concrete, and rooftops create more runoff and flooding.) C. Bricks and stones in roads are better for the environment than are concrete and asphalt. They allow rain through the inter-brick space and have less blistering heat. Angel strips not devilstrips (Planting grape trellises over highways re-greens the earth and creates food.)
19. DESERTIFICATION PREVENTION
Only reforestation can prevent desertification. This is the conclusion of Patrick Velasquez of US Agency For International Development and most other environmentalists. We used to think a pine cone was one seed, but apparently it is hundreds.
20. CHEMICAL POLLUTION REDUCTION Radio network show Public Interest October 7 featuring Rodale author: Chemically treated lawns are grass high on drugs.: Fertilizer has toxic byproducts forthe land and water. Rodale, Emmaus Pennsylvania, USA 18049 is oneleader in the organic movement.
21. FASTEST CLEANUP OF TOXIC DUMPS
Green island sanctuaries of unmolested plants,insects, and wildlife are a protection against the biotech manipulations of the environment.
22. WATERSHED PROTECTION The more greenery, plants, vines, trees, and bushes..the more the watershed, reservoirs, and lakes and ponds, brooks and streams are protected.a. Arsenic is a byproduct of the pressed wood industry. Arsenic is poisonous in the waters, and like other industrial pollutants such as mercury, chromium and polychlorinated biphenols is concentrated in the flesh of fishes.http://www.nofishing.net/ http://www.pcrm.org/ http://www.ivu.org/
23. BIODIVERSITY AND SPECIES PROTECTION Nonmowing or letting God be the landscaper createsbiodiversity and its many benefits (and benefirs) rather thanmonoculture. (Loggers caused the death of David Chain, Earth First tree activist. 707 923 2114 Andy Caffrey). Mowing with machine harvesters,
ride on mowers, manual or power mowers destroys sapling trees, the
cocoons of future butterflies, food sources of birds etc. etc.
(Help bring back the monarch butterflies by increasing the number of milkweed plants.)
24. FIRE PREVENTION
a. Since 2001, widescale drought in the NW and West has been reported. Destruction of greenery is one cause of this. Trees' evaporation is necessary in cloud formation. Fires have destroyed untold tens of thousands of square miles of green beings and resident animals.
b. Grass clippings confined in trash bins, hay bales can spontaneously combust in high temperature weather. (The grazing of sheep and cows causes deforestation and desertification since sapling trees are destroyed and there are few trees evaporationg moisture to call down rain.)
c. With electrically operated mowers, running over the cord or otherwise damaging it can cause fires if there is contact with dried brush, fabric or other.
25. FREE FOOD
Fruit and nut trees with grape and bean vines spaced among the trees can yield 450,000 lbs. per acre. (Animal flesh yields a maximum 100 to 1000 pounds per acre.) Ted Steinberg writes that in the US alone an area the size of Florida
is devoted to unproductive lawns.
26. WATER CONSERVATION: Unmowed areas do not need watering.. they are self contained systems. Nor do they need recycling. Most lawns
are watered for growth
and then the growth is cut and
discarded.
27. INSECTICIDE AND HERBICIDE PREVENTION: Carpet lawn enthusiasts pollute the environment with insecticides and herbicides in some cases.
28. OXYGEN CREATION as carbon dioxide is converted, METHANE GAS and toxic gases are purified by leaf action.
29. RADIATION
The more greenery, the more leaves, the more stems
.. the more absorption of radiation
SOME LINKS
http://stopmowing.blogspot.com
Planting a nomow lawn
http://www.sunset.com/garden/garden-basics/plant-no-mow-lawn-00400000029555/
Ditch the mower 8 ideas for no mow lawns
http://www.southernliving.com/home-garden/gardens/easy-yard-no-mowing-00400000054168/
50 nomow yards
http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-No-Mow-Yards-Amazing-Alternatives/dp/1604692383
http://nomow..co.nz New Zealand Nonmowing Site
Lose Your Lawn
http://www.losethelawn.com/about.php
Food Not Lawns
66 reasons not to mow
http://allpoetry.com/column/9722775-66_Reasons_Not_To_Mow_Down_Lawns_Or_Fields-by-saiom
Jill Richardson on wasteful lawns
http://otherwords.org/lose-your-lawn/
Are Lawns Bad yes says Mark Hostetler in the Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-hostetler/are-lawns-bad_b_1362571.html
Why Lawnmowing is bad for you Daily Mail says toxic fumes harm those who mow
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-51841/Why-mowing-lawn-bad-you.html
http://spot.acorn.net/fruitarian
II HUMAN RIGHTS:
1. FEEDING THE HUNGRY: FOOD CREATION Prevents famine by giving a cornucopia of free food to the planet Orchards are 450times as productive per acre as slaughterhouses..Dr. Faust,former chief of the USDA Fruit Labs, cited centenarian orchards of apple trees dropping two tons each of food. This is 400,000 lbs per acre as compared to 100 to 1000 lbs of food for meat, 10,000 lbs for dairy, 80,000 lbs. for acre. The 400 to l ratio is only the first step. Trilevel agriculture.. with bean and other vines around thetree trunks and other foodyielding plants in the interarboreal spaces.. yield even more. This also can be multiplied by those areas which have 2 or 3 growing seasons..e.g. Southern California. Because certain economic systems promote scarcity based profit, these orchard systems have been deemphasized.
2. PREVENTION OF DEATH AND INJURY 2a. Prevents in the U.S. alone, 75,000 accidents and some fatalities annually caused by mowers and harvesters, and around the world millions of accidents eliminated. NPR reported May 17, 2002 that tractor rollovers are the leading cause of death among farmers, and that farming in general is the 2nd most hazardous occupation (after commercial fishing).
"The Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) reported that in 2009, nearly 20,000 people were killed by lawnmowers and nearly 300,000 suffered an injury . 2011 data shows that more than 17,000 children or teens required medical attention in that year due to lawnmower injuries." Source: reiffandbily dot com
http://www.reiffandbily.com/lawnmower-deaths-catastrophic-injuries-new-jersey-pennsylvania/
Each year 800 children are run over by rideon mowers...involving in some cases amputations writes the amputee-coalition dot org.
http://www.amputee-coalition.org/lawn-mower-accidents-cause-needless-amputations/
2b. Ravines are generally more protected from mowing, as there is wider recognition of the danger of mowing.
2c. When grass is mowed on hillsides, when wet or exceedingly dry it can cause slipping accidents.
2d, There have even been drownings from lawnmower accidents as teens and adults drop into unseen septic tanks.
2e. One of every 5 lawnmower or machine harvester deaths, says
the Consumer Product Safety Commissions, involves a child.
2f. Electrocutions from bad cords or metal to metal contact,
loss of toes and fingers are some of the accidents never
reported in ride on mower catalogs.
2g. If you mow, please wear goggles, heavy shoes and gloves
as glass shards and stones are kicked up by the mower. This posting
comes with a prayer that those who mow will not suffer injury.
2h. Mowers catch on fire frequently. In addition electric mowers running over
plugs can cause fires and injuries.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/girl-lost-feet-walk-mom-article-1.13151383
2i. Dr Roger Westerholm's research at Stockholm University in Sweden measures the toxic carcinogens to which those who drive or push gas mowers are exposed
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-51841/Why-mowing-lawn-bad-you.html#ixzz3gogidtHF
Parent accidentally slices off daughter's toes with mower.
3 PREVENTION OF HEART ATTACKS As non shoveling of snow can prevent winter heart attacks nonmowing can sometimes prevent summer ones.
4. FREEDOM Health departments are reducing the forced crewcutting of lawns and the rending of Mother Nature's garments . See below for further info.
5. EMPTY JAILS Saves money otherwise spent on jailing people (see above)
6. PRIVACY Creates a privacy screen. Ways to avoid grass (a transitional plant unless land is constantly mowed) include a. pachysandra b. myrtle and other ground cover c. grape vine trellises d. evergreen trees and shrubs as natural fences e.berry bushes as natural boundaries.
7. HERBAL REMEDIES Nonmowing allows healing extracts and seeds to flourish, e.g. milkthistle seeds, which regenerate cirrhosis-afflicted livers. The active ingredient is silymarin. Many work against those who seek to patent the world's pre-existing seeds. http://www.purefood.org/ (see Monsanto file.) Plant rights
advocates take only the fruit of the plant whereas others
have no ethical objection to killing the plant.
8. KEEPS WASPS FRIENDLY prevents wasp stings and hive attacks as their homes are destroyed.
9. ECONOMICS MINT MONEY
The average American homeowner in 2016 spends $600 a year on lawnmowing.
I It's not counterfeiting but minting money to plant
olive trees which yield olive oil at $20 a gallon or macadamias
.. pears.. blueberries.. apples.
II a. saves money otherwise spent on fuel b. Saves money otherwise spent on young trees.c. Fruit trees save money spent on food. d. Free up lawnmower crews to create with
their time. e. For that minority who hire lawn crews, money
is saved. Seth Godin says 17 billion a year
is spent on lawnmowing expenses.
10. TIME ECONOMY frees human time hours for enjoyable priorities a. no gas procurement time, no mowing time, no rakingtime.
11. HERITAGE: The Native American culture never spent time mowing Mother Earth. Her green cover is her garment.Lawn mowing is a fairly recent thing. The original lawn mowers were sheep and other animals later slaughtered for their flesh. The Time Life Gardening Yearbook mentions the 'chipped monotypic layer of bluegrass', the crewcut which is called alawn. Other ecologists speak about the hazards of monoculture.
12. FREE CONCERTS Cicadas and crickets will give freeconcerts, as will woodpeckers, songbirds whose habitats are restored.Fireflies will put on silent fireworks. Buttercupswill save chalices of dew for butterflies who in turn will coolthe earth with the slight breeze from their fanning wings.
13. WEED KILLER OR HERBICIDE use (Diane Rehm Show Sept1) causes childhood and other environmental pollutant basedcancers. Some leaches into the water system. Some is directly smearedonto skin.
14. INSECTICIDE BASED CANCERS: Insecticides weredeveloped as weapons in WW 2. At the end of the war, chemicalcompanies wanted new markets. These insecticides cause cancer. (NPRSept 1) Animal products concentrate insecticides at 21 times theintensity they occur in fruits and vegetables, since a 1000 lb.cow ate 21,000 lbs. of food with nondegradable insecticides remainingin the muscle cells.
15. PREVENTION OF ASTHMA
While the chief physical cause of asthma is the mucus lining in the respiratory tract created by meat, fish and dairy products and the prime spiritual cause is fear or emotional stress, land allowed to grow gradually into fields and then thickets and finally woods provides less pollen.
16. HEALING: Studies of recovering gall bladder patients reveal that those looking on a garden heal faster than those not. (BJ 6 6 2000) There are now herbal therapists at Univ of Kansas, Rutgers, Texas A&M, and Virginia Tech. Those who look on living green have reduced blood pressure. The plant yarrow makes children in its proximity less agressive within a few moments. An ancient vedic parable says that to be healed one should look upongreen. Rather than paint the world that color, a sage says'put on green glasses'. (The best green glasses are living in an environment of green.)
(Plant rights advocates to not support the killing of plants for herbs.)
17. PREVENTION OF GUN ACCIDENTS
There has been at least one shooting caused by an irate reaction to
the noise of the lawnmower.
18. PREVENTION OF MENTAL ILLNESS
Is it a form of control freakdom to want to mow down what God
greengrows?
19. PREVENTION OF NEIGHBOR FIGHTS
Countless fights have been caused when someone's mower cuts down
his neighbor's flowers or shrubs.
20. HERBICIDES used by ChemLawn
and other lawn treatment companies
are poisoning the earth's waters,
causing cancer deaths to people,
animals, fishes, and plants.
21. BOREDOM Lawns crewcut composed of one type of plant only are boring.
22. OPPOSE THE FORCE OF THE LOWEST COMMON
DENOMINATOR
It is wrong to force compliance with narrow, truncated
and conventional ideas of aesthetics.
23. DECRIMINALIZATION OF MARIJUANA GROWING
a. Decriminalization helps the environment as people let more places grow wild
b. prevents government interference with popular freedom
c. reduces the power of drug cartels in decimating the price of marijuana
d. prevents diversion of public monies used to jail nonviolent drug users and to spend trillions
over decades in enforcing the alcohol industry's agenda to keep pot expensive.
24. CRIME FIGHTING TREES
Neighborhoods with trees have less crime.
25. COTTON PAPER LASTS 450 YEARS TREE PAPER LASTS 60 YEARS
26 Plowing machines often cut natural gas lines, endangering the health of
hundreds of homes.
III ANIMAL RIGHTS:
1. WILDLIFE HABITAT Reprovides a home for wildlife,both those not endangered and those which are.Keeps birds from flying away when the power motors are started.
2 ANIMAL RIGHTS: MACHINE HARVESTERS SHRED MANY MAMMALS PER ACRE Protects insects, redwinged blackbirdsand other living creatures nesting in ground cover, and preventsthe mastication deaths of millions of small field animals chewed up in harvesters.. (Sometimes the tiny feet of these animals can be seen in cans of food.) In Numbers 22, God causes a donkey to speak about the beatings of her human 'owner'.Along Lake Michigan in parts of Chicago are new signs indicating not mowing is done to give birds long grasses in which to nest.
3 PRESERVE WILDLIFE FOOD SUPPLY: Not removing acorns leaves food for squirrels and other wildlife during the winter as well as providing new sapling oaks in the spring. Not removing leaves provides more thermal shelter for northern animals.
4. SONGBIRDS ATTRACTED TO WILD AREAS...............
James Marcus: Dandelions: they must be God's favorite flower for He plants them everywhere.
5. PREVENT PET POISONING FROM LAWN INSECTICIDES
Pets poisoned by lawn insecticides
IV: PLANT RIGHTS .
1 PLANTS' RIGHTS Protect the rights of sentient plants whose feelings have been documented by Dr. Chandra Bose, knighted by the Queen of England for his laboratory measurement of plant consciousness. He also discovered and demonstrated
a radio long before Tesla and Marconi. (See MIT link in author notes)
Other scientists who have proven or written of plant consciousness ares are Clive Baxter, Luther Burbank, The Secret Life Of Plants writers,, the owner to whose rights, Isaac Tigrett, sold all the Hard Rock Cafes he founded after becoming a vegetarian.
Pachysandra, myrtle, snow on themountain,and camomile are some ground covers which do not offend moreconservative neighbors.
2: WILDFLOWER SANCTUARY Those like Lady Bird Johnsonwho have worked to foster protection of wildflowers know thenecessityof more wild places.
3: ENDING BOTANICAL RACISM E.Woodford spoke to poster of botanical racism. This phrase means different things to different people. To us it means that weeds have as much right to exist as do plants with cultivated blooms.The spirit-filled volunteers called weeds are usually stronger, more and more prolific than cultivated plants.
4. PROTECTING PLANTS YOU LOVE
Lawn crews are not as concerned as you about your young
magnolia trees, your sapling fruit and nut trees, your wisteria
and climatis vines.
*
V . DIVINE RIGHT:
1. Compulsory mowing violates the 1st amendment of the U.S. constitution in forcing someone to kill living beings against spiritual principles. The judge ruled the city had to pay damages. It is virtually impossible to mow a lawn without killing baby sapling trees, ants, butterflies, fireflies, toads, bumblebees etc. With huge harvesters, the devastation is much greater as red winged blackbirds and small field mammals are shredded.
Mother Earth blesses those who abandon controlling and manipulating her. She is the perfect landscape architect
because she is a landscaper, not a landscraper.
2. Why fight God who lets green grass grow.
God does not like lawnmowers.
Constantina Fiorentino, landscape architect, was asked to
be a witness by a family who had had their laisser faire lawn mowed
by a local health department. Asked by the judge if she would
consider the yard an example of her best work, she replied
"In time"
In an editorial on March 19, 1977, the Washington Post editorialized:"the tall grass can only benefit the citizens who seek the beauty of Rock Creek Park". That year the National Park Service instituted a 'meadows' program to let some areas return to nature. The Post mentioned the federal court case victory of an Akron citizen who fought the city's compulsory lawnmowing ordinance. "Nature is ready to cooperate. Some citizen cooperation is next." In addition the Post's Richard Cohen reported on a lawn mowed by a guinea pig named Bijou. Phil Shenon of the New York Times has covered no-mow activists such as Alice Herrington, then president of Friends of Animals. The BBC, NPR, and Australian Broadcasting are some international networks which have covered theadvantages of nonmowing. The Los Angeles Times also editorialized in favor of not mowing. The Atlanta Constitution outlined reasons not to mow in an article by Lewis Regenstein. Omni Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, Organic Gardening, Anita Manning of USA Today, Vegetarian Times, OMNI magazine, German newspapers, and many other publications have promoted the idea of nonmowing. Patrick Velasquez of the US Agency For International Development studied Senegalese forest. He said the cost of planting other country exotics there was $25 to $50 per tree,with 19% survival rate whereas natural regeneration (which occurs from nonmowing) is free. The USDA in 1998 has signed onto the National Wildlife Federation's Backyard Conservation plan.. which encourages people to let the area behind their homes grow wild for the sake of the environment. Even these corporate media and hunting promotion groups are promoting the environment. 'Corn on the curb' is an increasingly visible thing.
The Nature Conservancy while Henry Paulson was CEO of Goldman Sachs and president of Nature Conservancy, turned its wilderness shrines into cattle ranches.)
(While the US government is bombing forests in Iraq and Afghanistan, causing fires through USDA controlled burns, allowing lumbermen to make the US the land of skinny trees through the felling of several hundred year old trees in our national forests, encouraging the use of lumber rather than longer lasting stone stucco brick and block in building, and allowing cattle ranchers to lease our lands on which to graze animals for slaughter, thus deforesting, it is encouraging reduced mowing elsewhere. In Australia in early 2009, dozens if not hundreds of human beings and countless animals and trees died in fires, as the sheep and cattle industires
continue to cause drought through sapling tree destruction.
Ron Howard, director of A Beautiful Mind and many other films, made his first film at age 8.. an anti mowing film which showed the nature of mowers' attacks on lawns.
The book Beautiful No-Mow Yards by Evelyn Hadden shows 50 lovely alternatives to mowing
http://www.desktopwallpapers4.me/nature/rainforest-in-costa-rica-16527/
-Saiom Shriver-
You have my permission to reproduce this anywhere.
http://web.mit.edu/varun_ag/www/bose.html Chandra Bose, inventor of the radio, discoverer of plant consciousness
Isaac Tigrett, founder of the Hard Rock Cafes who bought the rights to The Secret Life Of Plants
http://www.oocities.org/maureen_tigrett/isaacbio.html
44 WAYS TO HELP TREES
44 Ways To Help Trees
1. Plant trees Work for city, state, country and UN tree planting
2. 66 reasons to stop mowing see link below
3. Eat tree products.. fruits and nuts.. say yes to orchard growers
4. Build with stone stucco brick and block not wood. You will a.prevent termite destruction nonviolently, b save the $,time, and environmental damage of paint, c have natural insulation with its energy savings, d. prevent rotting wood e. have better insulation in summer & winter f. end the disease related to living near the mold from rotting wood g. reduce the arsenic in the watersystems, flowing in from pressed wood factories and h. have increasing rather than decreasing equity in your home. Use natural barriers such as bushes, or chain link, rather than wood fencing.
5. Cancel daily newspaper..and magazines and newsletters printed on felled trees, as 72% of the young have get your news on the web. Daily newspapers account for trillions of trees slaughtered annually and most promote anti environment corporations.In the US a high percentage ofmetropolitan dailies are controlled by warmongers as well.
6. Print on cotton, recycled or scrap paper
7. Gas fireplaces have flames looking like those of woodburning fireplaces.... but do not kill sentient trees, destroy animal habitat, or kill animals the way wood burning stoves do. Trees are often cut down with flightless birds, squirrels, etc. in them. They are safer than woodburning stoves or fireplaces.
8. Buy food naturally packaged.. nuts in nut shells, bananas in peels.. buy in bulk. Fruit is nature's most perfectly packaged food. How many trees go into cereal boxes
9. Use canvas bags for shopping.. neither plastic nor paper
10. Stop eating meat, since cutting forests for cattlegrazing is a major cause of deforestation.. Animal flesh yields a maximum of 100 to 1000 lbs an acre. Tri level agriculture (fruittrees, vines and fruit bearing plants) yields over 450,000 lbs. peracre. or 450 to 4500 times as much food as murdered mammals' flesh.
11. Work for peace.. work for an end to giving 10 million a day to violent governments, for the outlawing of membership on arms merchant boards by government officials and elsewhere radically affecting weather patterns.. work for an end to CIA, Army and other weather manipulation through Haarp, Woodpecker, chemtrail cloud seeding and other means. In 1972 Seymour Hersh reported in the NY Times the CIA's attempts through cloud seeding to cause flooding in N Vietnam.
12. Save fruit seeds and scatter them in wild places The average evaporation of mature trees is 42 gallons a day.. which becomes mist, then clouds, and then rain, eliminating drought.
13. Buy books and greeting cards published on cotton, rice, or other nontree paper.
14. Purchase furniture which is used and refurbish it or buy metal furniture with cotton padding. There are many nontree furniture options. The furniture, lumber, and construction businesses have lobbied for the cutting down of US forests, making the US a land of skinnier younger trees, whereas the UK, some cities in Maryland and California require a permit to cut down old trees.
15. Vote out earth abusers whether you oppose Republicans by voting Green, Libertarian, Socialist, Democrat or other.
16. Avoid fast food places which deforest for their packaging, have no recycling containers in most outlets, and create litter which fills dumpsites and requires labor pickup http://www.vegdining.com http://www.mccruelty.com
17. visualize sun and green trees everywhere
18. pray, meditate
19. Outlaw junk mail (as telemarketers have been curbed). File a form with the main post office in your area. Return to sender. The GOP & junkmailers are requiring you to subsidize their treekilling and invasive practices.
20. Recycle cardboard cartons at commerical establishments. Recycle your own scrap paper.
21. Leave Christmas trees in the woods. Replace the purchase of dead Christmas trees with artificial trees.. or living ones planted each year in the year. Oregon is the biggest Christmas tree killer, making more than 7 billion annually from deforestation. Ending the purchase of cut trees a. is good for animal habitat b. prevents fires c. supports the rights of sentient trees d. promotes anti global heating air exchange e. saves a lot of money... for giving to your immediate family and friends or to the homeless
22. Save seeds of trees, vines, bushes, plants and scatter them where mowing does not occur
23. Ban the cutting of trees entirely as Thailand has down.(The United Kingdom has banned the cutting of trees after they reach a certain width.. while Takoma Park Maryland in the US and other cities have required a permit to cut older trees. Around the world elephants are threatened by logging, as well as by poaching and war.
24. Stop through lawsuits, networking etc. the 'controlled fires' deliberately set by the US Park Service and the Forest Service... fires which often are made more lethal by the unpredictable wind.. fires which destroy trees, animals, birds, reptiles, insects. The United States is still a land of skinny trees, because of present control of the Usda Forest Svc. and National Park Service by lumber, mining oil and cattle interests.
25. Work for library, workplace, home, and other printers' use of cotton, recycled, or the back sides of already printed paper. Printer and copier manufacturers are part of the problem.
26. Stop the control of national and state executive branch, legislatures and courts by corporate contractors
27. Network with other environmentalists
28. Disinvest mutual funds, pension funds from earth abusing corporations such as Georgia Pacific and other tree killers.
29. Replace paper towels with washed cotton rags.
30. Contact the USPS to give you a Direct Marketing Assoc. form.. which will stop both commercial and nonprofit junk mail delivered to your home http://www.the-dma.org/Advo is the world's largest junkmailer, killing trees both at the beginning and at the end as trees are bulldozed to make more landfill in which to put Advo junk.
31. Fax gives trees the ax... phone and email are more direct
32. Network with others working to end automatic phonebook distribution which besides killing trees .. would save the phone companies time gas and money
33. Please avoid insurance companies which mandate the killing of trees... (sometimes land speculators buy homes just long enough to put them on the market and profiteer from the sale... after axing centenarian trees...health departments too have joined in this anti health measure.)
34. Legislate underground power lines to save trees. This is done in several countries in Europe.
35. Clearcutting lumber and mining companies have caused flash floods around the world. One such began over the construction of 5000 homes near Beckley W. Va.
36. Lumber companies have put a variety of poisons into the waters.
37. Lumber companies have caused fires from dust accumulation such as the one occurring in Schofield Wisconsin in Oct. of 2005. Fire chief Doug Jennings: "It is my belief (the fire was caused by a dust explosion."
38. Using metal spiral staircases rather than wooden ones. Building with metal, stone, stucco, brick, block reinforced concete protects from fire, termites, the need to paint, keeps houses from floating away in floodsor being shattered by hurricanes, Recycled plastic is now pulverized and with concrete made into building blocks. It is made into other very strong wood substitutes.
39. Both a UN and a UK government report link cattle ranches and dairy products to global warming, as they cause the removalof trees.
40. Avoid wood chips. In a hot Houston park, wood chips spontaneously combusted, causing fire.
41. Respond to others. When the lumber industry says it plants saplings,it doesn't say that it takes 1000 years to replace a millenial oak, hundreds of years to replace multicentenarian firs.
42. There are a number of recycling companies which will put collection bins on your school, library, corporate, community or other property if you can generate 1000 or more pounds of paper per month (poundage varies per company.
43. Create more green space by building stilt homes on metal pilings
in lakes and bays.
44. Use a water spray rather than treekilling toilet paper.
Raking leaves a. wastes time b. fills landfills c. costs communities money d. removes blanketing leaves from Mother Earth during winter e . removes nuts which feed squirrelshttp://www.keeper.org
45. Women can use a cloth for post urination hygiene rather than
toilet paper from axed trees.
Use and foster development of nonviolent paper
66 reasons to stop mowing http://a.allpoetry.com/column/9722775-66_Reasons_Not_To_Mow_Down_Lawns_Or_Fields-by-saiom
http://allpoetry.com/column/9722781-
National Resources Defense says Portman one of 5 worst senators
Gas fireplaces
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=gas+fireplaces&FORM=HDRSC2
Get off junk mail lists http://www.the-dma.org/Advo
Elizabeth Blair re Abel Meeropol who wrote the song Strange Fruit about
Southern lynching and who adopted the orphaned Rosenberg children:
"There is something else about Abel Meeropol that seems to connect the man who wrote "Strange Fruit" to the man who created a loving family out of a national scandal. "He was incredibly softhearted," Robert says.
For example, there was an old Japanese maple tree in their backyard, which sent out many new seedlings every year.
"I was the official lawnmower," Robert says, "and I was going to mow over them, and he said, 'Oh, no, you can't kill the seedlings!' I said, 'What are you going to do with them, Dad? There are dozens of them.'
"Well, he dug them up and put them in coffee cans and lined them up along the side of the house. And there were hundreds of them. But he couldn't bring himself to just kill them. It was just something he couldn't do."
242,000 sent to emergency room from mower accidents between 2004 and 2006
http://www.stats.org/stories/2007/risks_of_lawn_mowing_july17_07.htm
30 page thread... of reasons not to mow
http://engforum.pravda.ru/index.php?/topic/10156-64-reasons-to-stop-mowing/
Kent Ohio Food Not Lawns Meetup Kent Ohio Food Not Lawns Message Board - Kent Ohio Food Not Lawns (Kent, OH) - Meetup http://www.meetup.com/Kent-Food-Not-Lawns/messages/boards/ http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/03/12/18709151.php
http://www.all-creatures.org//cac-how.html
http://www.foodnotlawns.com/
Grow Food Not Lawns
https://www.facebook.com/GrowFoodNotLawns?fref=nf
Lawns are a timesuck
Ten reasons not to put chemicals on your lawn
Capri bans lawnmowers and leaf blowers for peace and quiet
AP's Armanax re lawnmowers: 'weaponized garden butchers'
Pine Island movement to ban lawn mowers
http://pineislandnews.com/Pine_Island_News_Blog/content/ban-lawn-mowers
Environmentalists propose ban on harmful leafblowers
New Jersey town bans leafblowers
http://www.nj.com/essex/index.ssf/2016/05/nj_town_bans_leaf_blowers_--_should_it_be_allowed.html
pre-text photo wesleyluther.org
This began as 14 reasons not to mow, in 1973. It has grown to 66.
http://allpoetry.com/column/10804381-44-Ways-To-Help-Trees-And-Forests-Which-Cool-The-Earth-by-saiom
http://www.reiffandbily.com/lawnmower-deaths-catastrophic-injuries-new-jersey-pennsylvania/
Each year 800 children are run over by rideon mowers...involving in some cases amputations writes the amputee-coalition dot org.
http://www.amputee-coalition.org/lawn-mower-accidents-cause-needless-amputations/
40403 latest addition Sept 11, 2016
This last May the UK had a nomow May encouraging people allow at
least a part of their lawns to become wild, fostering wildflowers and therefore bees.
Phil Shenon of NY Times interviews others on not mowing.
https://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/11/nyregion/foes-of-mowing-argue-grass-h...