Now according to this press release from UC Irvine, green spaces in cities are bad for the planet….but wait, what about the UHI offset? Can I buy grass credit certificates?
Urban ‘green’ spaces may contribute to global warming, UCI study finds
Turfgrass management creates more greenhouse gas than plants remove from atmosphere
— Irvine, Calif., January 19, 2010 —
Dispelling the notion that urban “green” spaces help counteract greenhouse gas emissions, new research has found – in Southern California at least – that total emissions would be lower if lawns did not exist.
Turfgrass lawns help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and store it as organic carbon in soil, making them important “carbon sinks.” However, greenhouse gas emissions from fertilizer production, mowing, leaf blowing and other lawn management practices are four times greater than the amount of carbon stored by ornamental grass in parks, a UC Irvine study shows. These emissions include nitrous oxide released from soil after fertilization. Nitrous oxide is a greenhouse gas that’s 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, the Earth’s most problematic climate warmer.
“Lawns look great – they’re nice and green and healthy, and they’re photosynthesizing a lot of organic carbon. But the carbon-storing benefits of lawns are counteracted by fuel consumption,” said Amy Townsend-Small, Earth system science postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the study, forthcoming in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The research results are important to greenhouse gas legislation being negotiated. “We need this kind of carbon accounting to help reduce global warming,” Townsend-Small said. “The current trend is to count the carbon sinks and forget about the greenhouse gas emissions, but it clearly isn’t enough.”
Turfgrass is increasingly widespread in urban areas and covers 1.9 percent of land in the continental U.S., making it the most common irrigated crop.
In the study, Townsend-Small and colleague Claudia Czimczik analyzed grass in four parks near Irvine, Calif. Each park contained two types of turf: ornamental lawns (picnic areas) that are largely undisturbed, and athletic fields (soccer and baseball) that are trampled and replanted and aerated frequently.
The researchers evaluated soil samples over time to ascertain carbon storage, or sequestration, and they determined nitrous oxide emissions by sampling air above the turf. Then they calculated carbon dioxide emissions resulting from fuel consumption, irrigation and fertilizer production using information about lawn upkeep from park officials and contractors.
The study showed that nitrous oxide emissions from lawns were comparable to those found in agricultural farms, which are among the largest emitters of nitrous oxide globally.
In ornamental lawns, nitrous oxide emissions from fertilization offset just 10 percent to 30 percent of carbon sequestration. But fossil fuel consumption for management, the researchers calculated, released about four times more carbon dioxide than the plots could take up. Athletic fields fared even worse, because – due to soil disruption by tilling and resodding – they didn’t trap nearly as much carbon as ornamental grass but required the same emissions-producing care.
“It’s impossible for these lawns to be net greenhouse gas sinks because too much fuel is used to maintain them,” Townsend-Small concluded.
Previous studies have documented lawns storing carbon, but this research was the first to compare carbon sequestration to nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide emissions from lawn grooming practices.
The UCI study was supported by the Kearney Foundation of Soil Science and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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When your starting point is wrong your end point is wrong – so here we have yet another piece of expensive futile research…
I wonder if she’s got shares in astro-turf? My astro-research tells me we’ll need a few astro-sheep and astro-cows to eat the astro-turf… Hey another benefit – no normal-earth farting and belching… Then we’ll need some astro-people to eat the astro-beef astro-burgers and the planet will last for ever!
Meanwhile back on normal-earth, there’s plenty of useful work that needs doing – shovelling snow comes to mind. When they’ve finished doing that there are a few wells that need digging in Africa… Painting coal white is low-tech but I’m told it’s quite rewarding and it’s a job for life…
The modern trams are kind of pretty. Google image search for Tramvaj Skoda – to see what’s produced here in Pilsen. 😉
I think that the grass is kind of pretty, and may be manageable when it comes to the price. Other people might disagree but these are the issues to consider. Global warming my aršé.
Bulldust
Sorry you can have the buggy if you can find one – but horses are banned as they fart too much. Oh and stop breathing will ya!
Fit the last tram of the day with a mower head on the front guard, collector on the back. Anything the mower can’t cut – ignore and plant wild flower seeds.
The myth that is AGW.
The myth that is the EPA
Already screwed by Brown and his tax thuggies and now we are about to get
David “Green” Cameron, another Scot hell bent on stuffing the English. Doh!
It’s all falling apart for the Green Nazis…
Wind turbines on urban homes consume more energy than they generate
Roof-mounted wind turbines “no help in reducing carbon”
Roof-mounted wind turbines and solar panels are “eco-bling” that allow their owners to flaunt their green credentials but contribute very little towards meeting Britain’s carbon reduction targets, according to the Royal Academy of Engineering. Developers will waste millions of pounds installing such micro-generation devices unless the Government revises its building regulations on carbon-neutral homes and offices.
Doug King, Professor of Building Engineering at the University of Bath and the author of a report on low carbon buildings published today, said that far greater savings could be made by installing better insulation and methods of trapping the Sun’s rays.
He proposed that the government target for all new homes to be carbon-neutral by 2016 should be relaxed in return for developers making equivalent contributions to wind farms and other large-scale renewable energy projects. “Wind turbines and solar cells on the roof achieve little or nothing and are what I describe as eco-bling. It’s just about trying to say to the general public, “I’m being good, I’m helping the environment”.
Dr King said that wind turbines on urban homes often consumed more energy than they generated.
Field trials carried out last year by the government-funded Energy Saving Trust found that the most productive building-mounted wind turbines in urban or suburban areas generated only £26 of electricity a year. Many of these turbines, which cost about £1,500, were net consumers of electricity because their controls drew power from the grid when the wind was low.
Professor King said that for wind turbines on urban homes to be effective, they would have to be so big that their vibration would damage the building. He said that installing micro-generation devices could cost £10,000 to £12,000 per home and reduce its emissions by only a few per cent. He proposed an alternative policy under which developers would offset the entire emissions of new homes by contributing £3,000 per dwelling towards a wind farm on a hilltop.
Professor King said that offices would need to be redesigned to reduce energy use and cope with regular power cuts caused by the failure to replace ageing power stations. He accused the Government of failing to practice what it preached on emissions. A recent National Audit Office report found that 80% of government buildings opened since 2002 fell below minimum environmental performance standards.
Running out of puff
1.9% of homes (455,000) are suitable for building-mounted turbines
5 meters per second minimum average wind speed to justify the cost of a small turbine
80% by 2050: target for cut in 1990 level of greenhouse gas emissions
2016 date for all new homes to be zero-carbon under target
45% of current emissions come from buildings
80% of the buildings in which we will live in 2050 have been built
Sources: DECC, Energy Saving Trust, Royal Academy of Engineering
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6994439.ece
‘inversesquare (01:02:27) :
How can people be so gullible?’
Wandering off topic and no hard feelings on my part if this is snipped but the simple answer is because they want to be.
You can ask this about AGW but there are plenty of other once believed scientific, pseudo-scientific and not so scientific (urban myths) beliefs that survive in the public consciousness long after their credibility was shredded and they should have been consigned to the same rubbish pile as say Aristotelian Physics. One could say the same of Newtonian Physics as well except it still has some convenience in ‘real terrestrial world’ ‘back-of-the-envelope’ calculations.
So why would you want to persist in believing in something whose veracity is dated or never had any truth to it in the first place?
Some poissibilities:
1. Identity, how one defines oneself in their relationship with others (I present in this context as being environmentally aware/green).
2. Intellectual laziness.
As opposed to those who propagate an idea or ideology that they don’t actually believe in whose motives can be more readily understood in a self-interested/criminal context, that is a lot easier. It’s human, we would all do it if we thought we could get away with it and live with our conscience afterwards.
In regards to the 2 possibilities I raised earlier (and I admit there could be many others, I am doing this on the fly), the 2nd is the most readily addressed by insisting that said individual get with the program and shoving their nose in the best current knowledge that dispels aforesaid individuals previously ‘cast in concrete’ perceptions of the universe, an insistent appeal to intellectual capability is in my opinion the best approach in this case.
The 1st possibility is not a matter of trying to appeal to someones intelligence because intelligence rarely plays a part in determining someones core identity values and I readily include myself in such a sweeping assessment. For example, if you are not pursuing a damages/compensation claim or trying to avoid gaol time are you going to consistently claim that you are stupid, regardless of any IQ tests or equivalent you may have been subject to?
So we all like to think that we are intelligent, reasonable, rational human beings even though an objective observer may conclude with absolute certainty that we are anything but.
I think the money angle is the strongest, because everyone and I emphasise EVERYONE appreciates the significance of having money (il)legally taken out of their pocket and transferred to someone elses.
The pro-AGWers will undoubtedly produce true-believing martyrs who will proclaim they will gladly pay everything they canand more if they could of their own money in ‘carbon taxes or ’emission trading’ in order to save the planet. No problem there, insist they put their money where their mouth is, insist that they back themselves up by producing financial records. Yes, it is already happening but only in individual isolated cases against the obvious criminal types, not the true-believing martyr types. By all means pursue the criminals via the courts, the martyrs should rather be shown up as the hard core fringe element they are, thus appealing to the true-believers sense of identity, i.e. ‘do I really want to be associated with someone like that?’
This post has gone on too long, there will always be an element that will cling to the pro-AGW position no matter what, however like those who believe that the Apollo missions were faked, they can be marginalised into irrelevancy.
Wait a minute!
Wait a minute!
There a new eco-crisis! Forget CO2! This one is even bigger! I mean whoa!
N2O – global laughing gas!
http://www.climatedepot.com/a/4956/Time-for-next-ecoscare-already-As-Global-Warming-Movement-Collapses-Activists-Already-TestMarketing-the-Next-EcoFear-Laughing-Gas-Crisis-Oxygen-Crisis-Plastics
In a way it’s a damn shame.
Someday some green group will really have a legitimate warning, but no one will be listening to them anymore. They’ve made too many bogus, nutty phoney claims. They will have no more credibility.
Earth to crazy people, the earth is not warming now, the earth is cooling. No sunspots for crazy people.
They had better put artificial grass; no waterring, no fuel to cut it, no GHG emission and a lot of carbon fossilized for ever
The 1972 movie “Silent Running” has to be the ultimate “Greene” movie. Send the last of the Earth’s parks into space and blow them up. The earth needs more parking lots.
Astroturf doesn’t breathe, and we don’t live in a chemical soup we live in a biosphere.
Irregardless of whether the Earth warms or cools, Life will find a way (life always finds a way). Some species will make it, some won’t. That’s the story of life on Earth: get over it and start adapting.
Mr. Antrhopessimistic Green Whiner needs to get a life or face extinction in the changing climate.
If we don’t use more astroturf, the children may be eaten by sewer alligators. 🙂
http://www.iloveco2.org/2010/01/children-may-be-eaten-by-global-warming.html
Richard North on Times Now.
http://www.timesnow.tv/Debate-Global-warming-fight-gets-messy/videoshow/4336689.cms
“Ralph (03:29:02) :
The 1972 movie “Silent Running” has to be the ultimate “Greene” movie. Send the last of the Earth’s parks into space and blow them up. The earth needs more parking lots.”
There was still one shpere left, with the last remaining robot “Hughey” I think it was, tending to the plants, fleft to travel space or all eternity.
I enjoyed that film (But there were many doom, end of the world, type movies back then. Soylent Green was another.
@ur momisugly Geoff Sherrington: Any arguments? YES! You can stick your “credits, moral or monetary” up your proverbial. Anyone with any sense will not waste a second’s thought on this kind of childish nonsense. I mean, do you seriously believe that planting a few lawns, or trees or ANYTHING will make any measurable difference?
And I mean REGARDLESS of any maintenance emissions. For heaven’s sake, look at the vast oceans, the rain forests, then on the other side, volcanoes, oceans (again), living creatures, and way down on the list: fossil fuel – all affecting in one way or another the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. And you concern yourself with “credits” for planting a bloody tree? Or even a whole woodland? Read these words: No measurable difference.
Boy, have you made me angry. Where’s my medication…
“The researchers evaluated soil samples over time to ascertain carbon storage, or sequestration”
Whaaa??? They looked at the soil for carbon storage?? Noooo – the *grass* is the carbon storage…right?
Jeff
Sorry UCIrvine environmentalist, WRONG!
Astroturf the cities?
Have you lost your frickin’ mind?
You’re forcing flash-backs on me back to the 60’s again!
Ban the plastic bags but Astroturf the cities?
Yea, really great logic!
And am I suppose to actually discuss this?
Sorry, gotta put on some George Carlin so I can find my way back to reality.
(Parents: R-language)
We had to pave the planet to save it.
“It’s impossible for these lawns to be net greenhouse gas sinks because too much fuel is used to maintain them,” Townsend-Small concluded
———————
Yeah, industrious activity usually consumes resources.
No regard or accounting has been given of redundant grounds keepers.
Fail
It is time for the greens to lead by example, no more grass cutting in Central Park, reduce the carbon foot print and increase the CO2 sink. Return the park land to its former glory, wild grasses, wild flowers, butterflies. Either that, or astra turf the whole lot.
photon without a Higgs (22:19:24) :
“a way to get grant money for UC Irvine”
You can view ALL AGW press releases in this way – basically they are a cry for more NSF/DOE/NASA funding, which the American tax payer can no longer afford…
Ref – Ralph (03:29:02) :
“The 1972 movie “Silent Running” has to be the ultimate “Greene” movie. Send the last of the Earth’s parks into space and blow them up. The earth needs more parking lots.”
______________
I was trying to remember when that was and what the title was:-)
It’s obvious that the real problem in California is too much green grass, crop irrigation, firefighting, concrete, asphalt, people. Same applies to Nevada (esp Las Vegas). We need to pass a law that henseforth there will be no more “artificial” anything. If people want to live in Las Vegas, etc., then they’ll have to live in Nevada and not try to import anything like Mississippi. While the study didn’t specify Golf Courses, I beleive these folks don’t play golf.
These sorts of reports only confirm the idea that AGW promoters are not really serious or thoughtful people at all.
Folks, it’s not the grass that is bad, it’s the lawn maintenance practices that are bad. I have lived in a gated community where, by rule, everyone must have a green, nicely trimmed lawn. In this part of Florida that means most have a lawn of St Augustine grass. This grass, although very heat tolerant, is high maintenance. You need to constantly treat it for bugs & turf diseases, it needs lot’s of water and it grows like crazy requiring mowing, mowing and more mowing. Sarasota County now restricts fertilizer containing nitrogen or phosphorus and such cannot be applied to turf or landscape plants between June 1-Sept. 30 of each year. This is mainly for water pollution control as most people over fertilize thinking more is better. Again, it’s not the grass, it’s the people managing the grass.
Bulldust (22:35:51) : “Interesting point as an aside… in The Netherlands the road verges and median strips are not mowed anymore but left to grow wild. One presumes the justification being that this is a more natural state.”
More likely it’s to save the expense of mowing and maintenance.
Sarasota County has removed all the grass from road medians and replaced it with mulch for this very reason.
This is so obvious why would anyone have thought otherwise?