Green Grass

Plush, green lawns are valued by many people.  Even here in the desert, homeowners struggle to keep small lawns of green grass watered and healthy.  Businesses have caught on too, as lawn fertilizers all promise their product will lead to soft, green grass.

But why do we care so much about green lawns?  The first reason is that we are "wired" for the geography of the African savannah.  Scientists call this "biophilia", and the theory suggests that we prefer the landscape under which humans evolved: rolling hills, grass, an occassional creek or stream, and scattered trees.  If you go to the zoo, many zoos try to recreate this environment for creatures of African descent, such as the giraffe or lion.

The second reason comes from a book I'm reading titled, "The Old Way".  It documents the lifestyle of one of the last "true" hunter-gatherer tribes in Africa.  The book states that green grass was somewhat limited, being produced by either an unseasonal rainstorm or where a wildfire had burned off the dry grass.  The antelopes there fed off of grass, and preferred the green grass.  Hunter-gatherers knew this, and hence were always alert to the presence of green grass.  Green grass meant animals would be coming, and that meant hunting opportunities for the tribe.

It's likely then that humans' preference for green grass was built-in over millions of years of evolution.  Nowadays, people like green grass but have no idea why - it just feels good to have and look at.  This is just one of the many mechanisms that guided our hunter-gatherer ancestors and still guides us today in a much different environment.