my political platform

Here are a few ideas to change our society. I doubt any of them are original, but they're ideas I keep coming back to.

1. Goal: reduce water use and pesticide use.
a. use native species plantings for homes, businesses, parks.
b. reduce man-made single species plantings of vast areas (e.g. lawns, golf courses)
c. reduce lawns. How often is a lawn needed as a lawn? What parts of your lawn are there merely because lawns are conventional? How much of your lawn is a high traffic area that has to stand up to people walking on it, etc? Why not grow climate appropriate plants that look great and require less care? Why do developers put lawns around new construction? Lawns don't make sense in deserts or in many other places Lawns require mowing, and most people use fossil fuels AND have noisy lawn mowers (see http://www.nonoise.org/quietlawn.htm). Plants are great, and they can help keep the air clean and cool or warm ... but it doesn't have to be a lawn. See http://www.foodnotlawns.com/.
d. liven up golf by letting native plants grow on the course, instead of species requiring pesticides and watering. Dealing with the native terrain would be part of the challenge of each course. The native plants could be mowed down or chosen carefully to be suitable for golf.
d1. what about other sports? Can we make a more earth friendly soccer, football or baseball field that wouldn't detract from the game?

2. Slow Down the Building on Undeveloped Land.
I've thought for a long time that it should be MORE expensive to develop land that is not currently developed. Renovating existing properties should be more attractive than constructing where no building now stands. I remain baffled as to why building a NEW "green" house is often viewed as more ecologically correct than greening up an existing house. Reduce, RE-USE, recycle, right?

I suspect the true long term costs of new development vs. renovation would actually favor renovation, taking pollution, transportation, utility costs, etc. into account. This would also reduce urban sprawl. I imagine this would need to be addressed with taxes. Taxing developers targeting high end buyers/renters seems especially reasonable to me.

3. Composting
I clearly lived in Ithaca long enough for the granola values to rub off on me. Composting seems like an obvious win-win-win. It reduces waste going to the landfill (reducing landfill space and transportation costs). It is helpful for the soil, whether sandy or clay or most anything else. It's really easy. And it makes growing flowers, plants, and vegetables easier. There should be compost pick up, along with trash and recycling.