(article, Culinate staff)
Elizabeth Kolbert, the New Yorker's environmental writer, recently offered a neat summary of the history of the lawn and why it's just not as green as it looks. Kolbert admits that, while thousands of Americans have ripped out their lawns in the past few decades, millions more have put them in — yet she concludes that the lawn may be enjoying its last few hours in the sun. Fun fact: "Nearly a third of all residential water use in the United States currently goes toward landscaping."