In this episode, Ralph and Luc unpack how Americans got so obsessed with maintaining square green carpets on their front yards. We dive into the history to trace back the origins and dissemination of this artificial aesthetic. We also look into solutions, ranging from bans on gas leaf blowers to cash schemes to encourage people to quit their lawn. We read a poem about the lunacy of leaf blowers, and highlight ways in which manicured suburban imported lawn grass is a synecdoche for colonialism. Sources: • Ann Leighton, American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century, 1986. • Michael Pollan, “Why Mow? The Case Against Lawns”, The New York Times Magazine, May 1989. • Georges Teyssot, The American Lawn: Surface of Everyday Life, 1999. • Monique Mosser, The saga of grass: From the heavenly carpet to fallow fields, 1999. • Cristina Milesi, “More Lawns than Irrigated Corn”, NASA Earth Observatory, November 2005. • Paul Robbins, Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are, 2007. • Ted Steinberg, American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn, 2007. • Elizabeth Kolbert, “Turf War”, The New Yorker, July 2008. • Joseph Manca, "British landscape gardening and Italian renaissance painting", Artibus et Historiae (297-322), 2015. • Jamie Banks and Robert McConnell, National Emissions from Lawn and Garden Equipment, Environmental Protection Agency, April 2015. • Christopher Ingraham, “Lawns are a soul-crushing timesuck and most of us would be better off without them”, The Washington Post, August 2015. The photos of Ralph's yard were taken by his wife, Susan Levinson. Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction: Local bans on gas-powered lawn equipment 01:48 Poem about leaf blowers by Touch Moonflower 03:59 Commenting on the poem 06:51 How did lawns become so common in the USA? 07:56 Versailles' green carpet and Italian Renaissance landscapes inspired the British lawn 18:59 How 18th Century aristocratic English turf grass took root on the new continent 21:53 Thorstein Veblen on why American elites found lawns so respectable 24:10 Founding fathers disseminate the pastoral ideal 27:05 Planning communities of continuous lawn: Andrew Downing and Frederick Law Olmsted 32:03 Frank J. Scott tells suburbanites that homogenous manicured grass is neighbourly 34:48 How the lawn got cemented into the American imaginary in the aftermath of World War II 37:16 Post WWII suburban developments empowered Home Owners Associations (HOAs) 41:01 Quantifying the environmental impacts of modern US lawns 45:47 Why imported turf grass is a synecdoche for colonialism 50:40 Carpets of grass are fuel that spreads wildfires 51:38 Gas powered leaf blowers are huge polluters 55:00 How loud are leaf blowers? 55:51 Lawn care is a Sisyphean task of sterilisation 57:53 Norms around lawns are socially enforced 59:59 What solutions have helped people quit their lawn? 1:09:50 Conclusion and wrap up: the zeitgeist is shifting! 1:11:50 Luc's cover of "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell

In this episode, Ralph and Luc unpack how Americans got so obsessed with maintaining square green carpets on their front yards. We dive into the history to trace back the origins and dissemination of this artificial aesthetic. We also look into solutions, ranging from bans on gas leaf blowers to cash schemes to encourage people to quit their lawn. We read a poem about the lunacy of leaf blowers, and highlight ways in which manicured suburban imported lawn grass is a synecdoche for colonialism. Sources: • Ann Leighton, American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century, 1986. • Michael Pollan, “Why Mow? The Case Against Lawns”, The New York Times Magazine, May 1989. • Georges Teyssot, The American Lawn: Surface of Everyday Life, 1999. • Monique Mosser, The saga of grass: From the heavenly carpet to fallow fields, 1999. • Cristina Milesi, “More Lawns than Irrigated Corn”, NASA Earth Observatory, November 2005. • Paul Robbins, Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are, 2007. • Ted Steinberg, American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn, 2007. • Elizabeth Kolbert, “Turf War”, The New Yorker, July 2008. • Joseph Manca, "British landscape gardening and Italian renaissance painting", Artibus et Historiae (297-322), 2015. • Jamie Banks and Robert McConnell, National Emissions from Lawn and Garden Equipment, Environmental Protection Agency, April 2015. • Christopher Ingraham, “Lawns are a soul-crushing timesuck and most of us would be better off without them”, The Washington Post, August 2015. Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction: Local bans on gas-powered lawn equipment 01:48 Poem about leaf blowers by Touch Moonflower 03:59 Commenting on the poem 06:51 How did lawns become so common in the USA? 07:56 Versailles' green carpet and Italian Renaissance landscapes inspired the British lawn 18:59 How 18th Century aristocratic English turf grass took root on the new continent 21:53 Thorstein Veblen on why American elites found lawns so respectable 24:10 Founding fathers disseminate the pastoral ideal 27:05 Planning communities of continuous lawn: Andrew Downing and Frederick Law Olmsted 32:03 Frank J. Scott tells suburbanites that homogenous manicured grass is neighbourly 34:48 How the lawn got cemented into the American imaginary in the aftermath of World War II 37:16 Post WWII suburban developments empowered Home Owners Associations (HOAs) 41:01 Quantifying the environmental impacts of modern US lawns 45:47 Why imported turf grass is a synecdoche for colonialism 50:40 Carpets of grass are fuel that spreads wildfires 51:38 Gas powered leaf blowers are huge polluters 55:00 How loud are leaf blowers? 55:51 Lawn care is a Sisyphean task of sterilisation 57:53 Norms around lawns are socially enforced 59:59 What solutions have helped people quit their lawn? 1:09:50 Conclusion and wrap up: the zeitgeist is shifting! 1:11:50 Luc's cover of "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell

In this episode, Ralph and Luc unpack how Americans got so obsessed with maintaining square green carpets on their front yards. We dive into the history to trace back the origins and dissemination of this artificial aesthetic. We also look into solutions, ranging from bans on gas leaf blowers to cash schemes to encourage people to quit their lawn. We read a poem about the lunacy of leaf blowers, and highlight ways in which manicured suburban imported lawn grass is a synecdoche for colonialism. Sources: • Ann Leighton, American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century, 1986. • Michael Pollan, “Why Mow? The Case Against Lawns”, The New York Times Magazine, May 1989. • Georges Teyssot, The American Lawn: Surface of Everyday Life, 1999. • Monique Mosser, The saga of grass: From the heavenly carpet to fallow fields, 1999. • Cristina Milesi, “More Lawns than Irrigated Corn”, NASA Earth Observatory, November 2005. • Paul Robbins, Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are, 2007. • Ted Steinberg, American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn, 2007. • Elizabeth Kolbert, “Turf War”, The New Yorker, July 2008. • Joseph Manca, "British landscape gardening and Italian renaissance painting", Artibus et Historiae (297-322), 2015. • Jamie Banks and Robert McConnell, National Emissions from Lawn and Garden Equipment, Environmental Protection Agency, April 2015. • Christopher Ingraham, “Lawns are a soul-crushing timesuck and most of us would be better off without them”, The Washington Post, August 2015. Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction: Local bans on gas-powered lawn equipment 01:48 Poem about leaf blowers by Touch Moonflower 03:59 Commenting on the poem 06:51 How did lawns become so common in the USA? 07:56 Versailles' green carpet and Italian Renaissance landscapes inspired the British lawn 18:59 How 18th Century aristocratic English turf grass took root on the new continent 21:53 Thorstein Veblen on why American elites found lawns so respectable 24:10 Founding fathers disseminate the pastoral ideal 27:05 Planning communities of continuous lawn: Andrew Downing and Frederick Law Olmsted 32:03 Frank J. Scott tells suburbanites that homogenous manicured grass is neighbourly 34:48 How the lawn got cemented into the American imaginary in the aftermath of World War II 37:16 Post WWII suburban developments empowered Home Owners Associations (HOAs) 41:01 Quantifying the environmental impacts of modern US lawns 45:47 Why imported turf grass is a synecdoche for colonialism 50:40 Carpets of grass are fuel that spreads wildfires 51:38 Gas powered leaf blowers are huge polluters 55:00 How loud are leaf blowers? 55:51 Lawn care is a Sisyphean task of sterilisation 57:53 Norms around lawns are socially enforced 59:59 What solutions have helped people quit their lawn? 1:09:50 Conclusion and wrap up: the zeitgeist is shifting! 1:11:50 Luc's cover of "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell

In this episode, Ralph and Luc unpack how Americans got so obsessed with maintaining square green carpets on their front yards. We dive into the history to trace back the origins and dissemination of this artificial aesthetic. We also look into solutions, ranging from bans on gas leaf blowers to cash schemes to encourage people to quit their lawn. We read a poem about the lunacy of leaf blowers, and highlight ways in which manicured suburban imported lawn grass is a synecdoche for colonialism. Sources: • Ann Leighton, American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century, 1986. • Michael Pollan, “Why Mow? The Case Against Lawns”, The New York Times Magazine, May 1989. • Georges Teyssot, The American Lawn: Surface of Everyday Life, 1999. • Monique Mosser, The saga of grass: From the heavenly carpet to fallow fields, 1999. • Cristina Milesi, “More Lawns than Irrigated Corn”, NASA Earth Observatory, November 2005. • Paul Robbins, Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are, 2007. • Ted Steinberg, American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn, 2007. • Elizabeth Kolbert, “Turf War”, The New Yorker, July 2008. • Joseph Manca, "British landscape gardening and Italian renaissance painting", Artibus et Historiae (297-322), 2015. • Jamie Banks and Robert McConnell, National Emissions from Lawn and Garden Equipment, Environmental Protection Agency, April 2015. • Christopher Ingraham, “Lawns are a soul-crushing timesuck and most of us would be better off without them”, The Washington Post, August 2015. Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction: Local bans on gas-powered lawn equipment 01:48 Poem about leaf blowers by Touch Moonflower 03:59 Commenting on the poem 06:51 How did lawns become so common in the USA? 07:56 Versailles' green carpet and Italian Renaissance landscapes inspired the British lawn 18:59 How 18th Century aristocratic English turf grass took root on the new continent 21:53 Thorstein Veblen on why American elites found lawns so respectable 24:10 Founding fathers disseminate the pastoral ideal 27:05 Planning communities of continuous lawn: Andrew Downing and Frederick Law Olmsted 32:03 Frank J. Scott tells suburbanites that homogenous manicured grass is neighbourly 34:48 How the lawn got cemented into the American imaginary in the aftermath of World War II 37:16 Post WWII suburban developments empowered Home Owners Associations (HOAs) 41:01 Quantifying the environmental impacts of modern US lawns 45:47 Why imported turf grass is a synecdoche for colonialism 50:40 Carpets of grass are fuel that spreads wildfires 51:38 Gas powered leaf blowers are huge polluters 55:00 How loud are leaf blowers? 55:51 Lawn care is a Sisyphean task of sterilisation 57:53 Norms around lawns are socially enforced 59:59 What solutions have helped people quit their lawn? 1:09:50 Conclusion and wrap up: the zeitgeist is shifting! 1:11:50 Luc's cover of "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell

In this episode, Ralph and Luc unpack how Americans got so obsessed with maintaining square green carpets on their front yards. We dive into the history to trace back the origins and dissemination of this artificial aesthetic. We also look into solutions, ranging from bans on gas leaf blowers to cash schemes to encourage people to quit their lawn. We read a poem about the lunacy of leaf blowers, and highlight ways in which manicured suburban imported lawn grass is a synecdoche for colonialism. Sources: • Ann Leighton, American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century, 1986. • Michael Pollan, “Why Mow? The Case Against Lawns”, The New York Times Magazine, May 1989. • Georges Teyssot, The American Lawn: Surface of Everyday Life, 1999. • Monique Mosser, The saga of grass: From the heavenly carpet to fallow fields, 1999. • Cristina Milesi, “More Lawns than Irrigated Corn”, NASA Earth Observatory, November 2005. • Paul Robbins, Lawn People: How Grasses, Weeds, and Chemicals Make Us Who We Are, 2007. • Ted Steinberg, American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn, 2007. • Elizabeth Kolbert, “Turf War”, The New Yorker, July 2008. • Joseph Manca, "British landscape gardening and Italian renaissance painting", Artibus et Historiae (297-322), 2015. • Jamie Banks and Robert McConnell, National Emissions from Lawn and Garden Equipment, Environmental Protection Agency, April 2015. • Christopher Ingraham, “Lawns are a soul-crushing timesuck and most of us would be better off without them”, The Washington Post, August 2015. Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction: Local bans on gas-powered lawn equipment 01:48 Poem about leaf blowers by Touch Moonflower 03:59 Commenting on the poem 06:51 How did lawns become so common in the USA? 07:56 Versailles' green carpet and Italian Renaissance landscapes inspired the British lawn 18:59 How 18th Century aristocratic English turf grass took root on the new continent 21:53 Thorstein Veblen on why American elites found lawns so respectable 24:10 Founding fathers disseminate the pastoral ideal 27:05 Planning communities of continuous lawn: Andrew Downing and Frederick Law Olmsted 32:03 Frank J. Scott tells suburbanites that homogenous manicured grass is neighbourly 34:48 How the lawn got cemented into the American imaginary in the aftermath of World War II 37:16 Post WWII suburban developments empowered Home Owners Associations (HOAs) 41:01 Quantifying the environmental impacts of modern US lawns 45:47 Why imported turf grass is a synecdoche for colonialism 50:40 Carpets of grass are fuel that spreads wildfires 51:38 Gas powered leaf blowers are huge polluters 55:00 How loud are leaf blowers? 55:51 Lawn care is a Sisyphean task of sterilisation 57:53 Norms around lawns are socially enforced 59:59 What solutions have helped people quit their lawn? 1:09:50 Conclusion and wrap up: the zeitgeist is shifting! 1:11:50 Luc's cover of "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell

In this episode, Ralph and Luc unpack how Americans got so obsessed with maintaining square green carpets on their front yards. We dive into the history to t...

In this episode, Ralph and Luc spotlight an environmental success story: the Montreal Protocol's role in healing the ozone layer. We draw comparisons to the ...

In this episode, Ralph and Luc spotlight an environmental success story: the Montreal Protocol's role in healing the ozone layer. We draw comparisons to the pitfalls of the IPCC's COP process and try to derive a diplomatic blueprint for climate policy. We look into the science of how ozone and chlorine works in the stratosphere, the history of the activist scientists (Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina) who first sounded the alarm about CFC's destruction of the ozone layer, and the work of technocrats in devising their replacement. We also examine the geopolitical dynamics that were foundational to this planetary victory. Sources: • We sample clips from the 2019 PBS documentary Ozone Hole: How We Saved the Planet, written and directed by Jamie Lochhead — notably interviews with Mario Molina, Joan Rowland (widow of Sherwood), Lee Thomas (administrator at the EPA), Crispin Tickell (adviser to Margaret Thatcher) and Bob Watson (NASA). https://www.pbs.org/show/ozone-hole-how-we-saved-planet/ (some of these clips are shown as a black screen for copyright reasons) • We also sample clips from this 2021 interview with Susan Solomon (the atmospheric chemist who demonstrated CFC’s impact on ozone) and Stephen Andersen (leader of the Montreal Protocol and co-chair of its Technology and Economic Assessment Panel), by the Future of Life Institute, in which they share their roles in the closing of zone hole. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hwh-uDo-6A • We cite elements from the 1998 book Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet, by Richard Elliot Benedick. • We cite the 2002 book Ozone Connections: Expert Networks in Global Environmental Governance, by Penelope Canan and Nancy Reichman. • We cite the 2019 book The Ozone Layer: From Discovery to Recovery, by Guy P. Brasseur. • We cite the 2021 Nature article The Montreal Protocol protects the terrestrial carbon sink, by Paul J. Young, Anna B. Harper, Chris Huntingford, Nigel D. Paul, Olaf Morgenstern, Paul A. Newman, Luke D. Oman, Sasha Madronich & Rolando R. Garcia. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03737-3 • We refer to insights from the 2021 book Cut Super Climate Pollutants Now!: The Ozone Treaty’s Urgent Lessons for Speeding Up Climate Action, by Alan Miller, Durwood Zaelke and Stephen Andersen. • We also cite from the 2023 book 35th Anniversary of Protecting the Ozone Layer, by Marco Gonzalez and Stephen Andersen. • Finally, we draw upon materials from: https://ozone.unep.org/ozone-timeline and https://csl.noaa.gov/assessments/ozone/2022/downloads/twentyquestions.pdf @UNEP @worldmetorg @usnoaagov @NASAGoddard @mpichemie @ozonaction @uciquestforpeace @UCIOpen Hosted by @ralphlevinson and @LucLewitanski. Chapters: 0:00:00 Introduction: COP 28 Wrap-up 0:02:49 Science of the Ozone Layer 0:04:30 History of CFCs: Thomas Midgely’s invention and subsequent uses (1930s) 0:08:21 Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina’s Research shows CFCs' dangers for ozone (1970s) 0:17:42 Consumer Boycott of CFCs: All in The Family 0:24:05 Consumer Boycott of CFCs: children’s Entertainment led Mc Donald’s to change its packaging from foam to cardboard 0:29:51 Sherwood Rowland coins the term “ozone hole” 0:32:04 Ozone concentrations in the Antarctic were so low that the scientists thought it was a measurement error 0:33:53 Susan Solomon’s model explains how CFCs caused the ozone hole (1980s) 0:38:18 Scientists fly an airplane into the ozone hole 0:39:31 Global Diplomacy: First Framework, the Vienna Convention (1985): a modest start 0:40:45 Global Diplomacy: The Montreal Protocol’s "start and strengthen" amendment process 0:46:51 Geopolitics of the Montreal Protocol - comparing nations' relation to CFC production in the 1980s 0:59:51 Global Diplomacy: Stephen Anderson on the effectiveness of involving engineers to work on replacements (industry released their patents) 1:04:34 Stephen Andersen presents technological innovations that came as the fruit of his Technology and Economic Assessment Panel (TEAP) and why it worked 1:17:31 Ronald Reagan's Administration contained factions that disagreed on whether to act on ozone 1:22:50 Margaret Thatcher's surprisingly collaborative response 1:25:21 2016 Kigali Amendment bans HFCs - the Montreal Protocol takes on greenhouse gases 1:32:11 World avoided scenarios: How effective has this process been? What do we estimate would have happened otherwise? 1:37:33 Comparing what worked with ozone to the climate change movement: distinctions between Montreal Protocol and COP and lessons to learn 1:47:01 Closing Phytoplankton Song

In this episode, Ralph and Luc spotlight an environmental success story: the Montreal Protocol's role in healing the ozone layer. We draw comparisons to the ...

In this episode, Ralph and Luc chat with Michael Jefferies, Regional Conservative Outreach Coordinator for the Citizens' Climate Lobby. Together, we get out ...

In this episode, Ralph and Luc delve into what the oil companies knew about CO2’s impact on the climate, and how they lied to you to sustain their fossilized...