As a heatwave drags across the United States, local and state governments are scrambling to find solutions to the threats brought by record high temperatures. Washington DC and Philadelphia have declared heat emergencies, activating public cooling centers and other safety measures across their cities, while Phoenix and Los Angeles continue to push programs to plant new trees in working-class neighborhoods with little canopy coverage. Many of these short-term solutions rely on water, a dangerous reality given that nearly 50% of the country is experiencing some form of drought, with the amount of Americans affected by drought increasing 26.8% since last month. This looming threat has pushed one state, Nevada, to seek a more long-term solution: the banning of non-functional lawns.
Lawn grass takes up 2% of all land in the United States. If it were a crop, it would be by far the single largest irrigated crop in the country. Nevada has, due to necessity, taken an obvious but large step in alleviating some of the more immediate symptoms of the climate crisis and bought themselves more time for other measures. It is time for the federal government to push all states to do the same and create incentives to ensure that it happens quickly and in a manner that doesn’t force working-class Americans to foot the bill.
