Lawns are a monoculture wasteland that are almost entirely useless as a habitat for wildlife. They don’t provide us with any food, but nonetheless require a huge investment in time, money, and resources. They are a love letter to conspicuous consumption, a term coined by economist Thorstein Veblen in his book The Theory of the Leisure Class, and defined as “the purchase of goods or services for the specific purpose of displaying one’s wealth.”8 Lawns are also a giant middle finger to the environmental movement.
