A Garden On The White House Lawn, Definitely A Shovel-Ready Program

At a time when every carbon footprint is being measured and accounted for, the White House Administration need only look out the many windows of their mansion to see their own big contribution to global warming.  Encompassing about 18 acres, the White House grounds are manicured with more precision than the most posh country club golf course.  Trying to find out how much the government spends on all the chemicals, fertilizers, and mowings is like trying to unearth classified data, says Michael Pollan on an interview with Good Food’s Evan Kleiman.  The White House lawn’s carbon footprint must be a size 37 (largest feet ever)!

white-house-lawn

So, bring back the victory garden cry Michael Pollan, the WHO project, Eat The View, and many other climate and earth-conscious groups.  To them, the White House lawn is a pretty patch of turf that costs us and the environment too much green any way you cut it.  Michael Pollan tells us that the last time the White House provided edible goods was during World War II.  Eleanor Roosevelt had to fight tooth and nail with the Department of Agriculture in order to get a garden on the White House lawn.  The Dept. of Agriculture was worried that a victory garden trend would stifle domestic food production.  In fact, by the end of the World War II there were about 20 million victory gardens providing approximately 40% of the nation’s fresh produce.  Sadly, the White House garden was expunged, and the Department of Agriculture openly discouraged household gardens, believing that the US’s farm systems needed to be revitalized.

The other major push for a garden at the White House was during the late 1970’s energy crisis under the Jimmy Carter administration.  Instead of planting a garden, Carter installed solar panels and turned down the thermostat.  Those are good first steps, but our contemporary energy predicament necessitates much bigger action.  President Barack Obama declared, “what is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world.”  We demand that the Obama administration be a model of responsible and efficient energy utilization.

Obama also told us of a new generation of liability in government: “…Those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account, to spend wisely, [and] reform bad habits…”(link).  Thus we hold the government responsible for unwisely spending on unnatural greenery and continuing the bad habit of maintaining a manicured lawn.  The White House can rectify the hypocrisy of the new administration by investing in an expansive, 18 acre garden.  A White House garden is an eco-friendly, shovel-ready program we can applaud.

Get involved by signing the petitions at the WHO farm project and Eat the View.  Or, if you can, follow Eleanor Roosevelt’s example and grow your very own victory (over fossil fuels) garden.  See the Garden Helper for tips.

P.S.  Check out this NY Time’s article for a quick overview of the White House’s lawn history.

February 2, 2009  Tags: , , , , , ,   Posted in: Fun Food Facts, Politics

2 Responses

  1. Tracy - February 2, 2009

    It’s funny that you mention this. I got an email yesterday with this link: http://whitehousefarmer.com/ where they did a poll to nominate some farmers to create a White House vegetable garden.

  2. A White House Garden, Part II: Cuba Shows US The Way? | Food Bubbles - February 3, 2009

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