From a press release from the Union of Concerned Scientists, we learn that you don’t need to worry anymore about global warming, we can just garden our way to carbon nirvana, that is, if the bugs don’t eat it. -Anthony
WASHINGTON (April 26, 2010) Home gardeners can avoid contributing to climate change by using certain techniques and tools that are more climate-friendly than others, according to a new gardening guide released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The science-based guide explains the connection between land use and global warming, and offers recommendations for conscientious gardeners to maximize the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide their green spaces store and minimize the other global warming gases gardens can emit.
“Many Americans understand that powering our cars and computers overloads our atmosphere with heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide,” said Karen Perry Stillerman, a senior analyst with the UCS Food and Environment Program. “With the right practices, farmers and gardeners can lock up some of that carbon in the soil.”
When too much carbon dioxide and other global warming gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, are released into the air, they act like a blanket, trapping heat in the atmosphere and altering weather patterns around the world, Stillerman explained. Unchecked climate change will have serious consequences for public health and the environment.
Although agriculture can store carbon and reduce other emissions on a much larger scale, gardeners can help. The Climate-Friendly Gardener: A Guide to Combating Global Warming from the Ground Up (www.ucsusa.org/gardenguide) offers five recommendations for gardeners.
1. Minimize Carbon-Emitting Tools and Products. Gasoline-powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers are obvious sources of heat-trapping carbon dioxide. A typical mower emits 20 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon. Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, which require a lot of energy to produce, also contribute to global warming. The new guide provides several tips for avoiding garden chemicals and fossil-fuel-powered equipment.
2. Use cover crops. Bare off-season gardens are vulnerable to erosion, weed infestation and carbon loss. Seeding grasses, cereal grains or legumes in the fall builds up the soil, reduces the need for energy-intensive chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and maximizes carbon storage. The guide recommends that gardeners plant peas, beans, clovers, rye and winter wheat as cover crops and explains the specific advantages that legume and non-legume cover crop choices have for gardens.
3. Plant Trees and Shrubs Strategically. Planting and maintaining one or more trees or large shrubs is an excellent way to remove more heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over a long period of time. A recent study estimated that the trees in U.S. urban areas store nearly 23 million tons of carbon in their tissues every year. That’s more than all of the homes, cars, and industries in Los Angeles County emit annually, or about as much as all of the homes in Illinois or Pennsylvania emit every year. Well-placed trees also shade buildings from the summer sun or buffer them from cold winter winds, reducing the need for—and cost of—air conditioning and heating. UCS’s guide discusses the most suitable types of trees for a climate-friendly yard.
4. Expand Recycling to the Garden. Yard trimmings and food waste account for nearly 25 percent of U.S. landfill waste, and the methane gas released as the waste breaks down represents 3 to 4 percent of all human-generated heat-trapping gases. Studies indicate that well-managed composted waste has a smaller climate impact than landfills. The UCS guide describes how to create a climate-friendly compost pile.
5. Think Long and Hard about Your Lawn. Residential lawns, parks, golf courses and athletic fields are estimated to cover more than 40 million acres—about as much as all the farmland in Illinois and Indiana combined. A growing body of research suggests that lawns can capture and store significant amounts of carbon dioxide, but some newer studies warn of the potential for well-watered and fertilized lawns to generate heat-trapping nitrous oxide. The science is unsettled, but there are practical things gardeners can do to maximize lawn growth and health with a minimum of fertilizer and water. The new UCS guide summarizes the science and offers tips for homeowners to make their lawns truly “green.”
“Gardening practices alone won’t solve global warming, but they can move us in the right direction, just like installing super efficient light bulbs and using reusable bags,” said Stillerman. “Seventy percent of Americans garden, and they can have a positive impact. Our guide shows them how.”
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h/t to WUWT reader Milwaukee Bob
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Someone coined the phrase, “Mankind in Amnesia.” That seems to fit this generation that has no clue what it’s been like trying to get bread from the earth for the last few thousand years, without pesticides and herbicides.
Some aphids have 10 to 15 generations in a growing season. Cucumber beatles may produce up to seven generations in one year. In moist conditions, a single fungus bearing plant can infect thousands more in just a few days.
I don’t mind a bit having health food stores and organic food sections where rich hippies pay twice as much for half as much to “save the planet.”
But beyond these pro-biofuel, high-energy-price, and anti-pesticide green policies there are potato and rice famines.
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=60480
I thought the Union of Concerned Scientists was a self help group for tax funded pseudoscientists who have developed obsessive–compulsive disorder after believing in their own end of the world predictions.
@L
You are wrong, Gasoline does float on water. Try it!
HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY TO THE LASER
A nostalgic trip down the memory lane for the older readers. An informative article marking the anniversary.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7706967/Happy-50th-birthday-to-the-laser-the-death-ray-at-every-supermarket-till.html
It’s only an educated guess, but I’d bet dollars to organic whole grain donuts that a human pushing a hand mower produces more excess CO2 per square foot of lawn than a gasoline powered mower. A well designed engine is simply more efficient at producing mechanical work than we are.
Warren says: May 10, 2010 at 9:26 pm
“A typical mower emits 20 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon”
Can anyone explain how to turn 10lb (Imperial Gallon) into 20lb Co2?
Warren – Warren firtstly a US Gallon of petrol weighs about 6 pounds not 10.
Assuming Petrol to be propane C3H8, 6 pounds of petrol contain about 4.91 pounds of carbon. Carbon is about 27.27% of CO2 so 1 gallon of petrol would produce about 4.91/0.2727 = 18 pounds of CO2 if completely combusted.
However I doubt if a “typical mower” is 100% effiecient. I would estimate at least 10% of the fuel remains unburnt and a further 10% partially burnt to produce CO.
Thus the Fuel totally combusted would be about 3.93 pounds producing 3.93/0.2727 = 14.4 pounds of CO2
I am not a scientist, merely an engineer but I am concerned that the scientists have exaggerated their figures by about 5.6 pounds or 38.9%.
If they are so poor with their facts there is reason to be concerned.
Sometimes when people are faced with wicked problems too difficult to understand,
they revert to magical thinking.
Signs, omens, being convinced of this or that, making sacrifices, trying to acquire “good” karma.
Sometimes not knowing is a fact of life. A rock could hit us tomorrow. A volcano could go off. We don’t know. Fact of life.
I hate this sort of stuff, as it looks a lot like gossip; but I recently have been about the Joyce Foundation and Chicago Climate Exchange story from the Cypress Times, summarized by Jo Nova, and as I had already heard about the TIDES Foundation, decided to scratch a bit, something in which this site was helpful, for whatever it’s worth – which I don’t know, it can just be a flip side activist site, an anti-activist activist site.
The connections that come up are these. It’s not in English, but you can read the titles in the boxes and easily get the idea.
This must, of course, be taken with a large grain of salt, and much balance.
(As I’m here, and for who hasn’t followed the older thread, the first tabular data is out re/ the NAS letter’s sigantories backgrounds: 72.6% cannot be related to climate science. Still in progress.)
How do I control my lawn so that it doesn’t upset the balance of the planet?
I don’t remember who says that (or something approaching) : “Rebutting alarmists is like shooting fishes in a barrel”.
It seems fraudulent (to me,at least) that an advocacy group whose membership consists largely of lay people should call itself an ‘association of concerned scientists’. Most keen gardeners I have known over the years have knowledge and expertise way beyond that exhibited by this strange group.
Their advice is nothing more than a nasty attempt to frighten people and should be condemned for what it is.
“It is an activists group. It is not a group of scientists. I am wondering if it violates some sort of law to give the impression to the public they are all scientists.”
Conspiracy to extort?
Layne Blanchard says:
May 10, 2010 at 10:55 pm
I have a riding mower, and 12,000 sq ft of lawn. But I mow very fast, and consume carbon friendly wine while I mow. I also flash cook my filet Mignon on the grill, helping to rid the world of evil cows that would otherwise destroy the planet. It’s hard, but I do what I can.
I am “green” with envy & aspire to your ecological enlightenment!!!!!:-))
Won’t they exert even more CO2 doing gardening. What makes the grass grow in the first place? This sounds like pure twoddle! On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with gardening & growing your own vegetables, etc if that’s your bag or whatever the hip ‘n happening term is today! A recent study in the UK concluded that organic food showed no improvement in nutritional quality over inorganic food. It’s just a feelgood factor, the mind plays very strange tricks, I even recall many years ago digging up some of my mother-in-laws fresh new potatoes for Sunday lunch, they tasted very nice but logic dictated that they cannot be any better nutuitionally! Yes inorganic fertilizers can be toxic in the right quantity, (the poison is always in the dosage) that’s why we’re advised to wash vegetables before cooking them.
Warren says:
May 10, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Short answer: Carbon in the gasoline mixes with twice as much oxygen to create CO2.
Longer answer: if the gas was 100% carbon (it’s not, but hey), it would combine with 2x the amount of oxygen to form CO2 (one C, 2 O’s). Carbon relative weight is 12, O 16 (I think) That would, if fully burnt and 100& carbon, become 42, or 3.5 x 12. For 10lb of carbon fully burnt you would get 35lb of CO2.
I have no idea how much of gasoline is carbon, but most is, I’d guess (coal is almost all carbon), so it sounds about right.
L says:
May 10, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Ummm, not sure about that. I understood US pints to be smaller than UK pints and 16 fluid Oz to 20 fluid Oz. You may wonder what a fluid Oz is? It is the volume of water that weighs one Oz, hence the name.
I always thought it odd, but it makes sense because the US pint (of water) weighs 1 il, whereas the UK one weighs 1.25 lb.
So one US gallon of water weighs 8 lb.
Oh, and L, the Carbon mixes with twice as much Oxygen from the air, that’s how more CO2 is produced than there was gas.
OK HaroldW got it much better than me.
I’ve had a browse of the interweb, and there are so, so many people trying to convert Kg and litres of water to pints and ponds. Has nobody ever heard of a fluid ounce?
There are also (claimed) flight engineers telling people that 1 gallon of water is 8.33 lbs. I hope they never have anything to do with any plane I travel in when spreading my carbon footprint.
A poem for our time
by MostlyHarmless
We have a lot of weather here
We get it every day
Rain falls, wind blows, but when sun shines
Global Warming’s on the way
Switch off your Lights! Recycle now!
Make those polluters pay!
Don’t fly! Don’t drive! Give up red meat!
Global Warming’s on the way
The polar bears will soon die out
I read that every day
The ice is melting, sea is rising
Global Warming’s on the way
What can we do? The deadly CO2
Means we’ll have to pay
For human sins and follies past
Global Warming’s on the way
Snow falls, ice forms, the cold wind blows
The freeze remains all day
Stoke up the fire, put on your coat
Global Cooling’s on the way
But wait! What’s that? They got it wrong?
We’ve been through this before?
Forget your woes, and rush outdoors
Live life, love life – forget Al Gore
Mankind is just a tiny speck
No matter what they say
A blip the universe ignores
Carpe Diem – seize the day!
We have a lot of weather here
We get it every day
Rain falls, wind blows, but when sun shines
It warms the blues away
L,
You need to check your memory. Water weighs about 8 lbs/gal and gas is much closer to 6 lbs/gal. Yes, gas does float. Under most conditions it disperses too thinly to burn on the surface of water, but it does indeed float.
I for one am NOT a fan of the Union of Confused Scientists. But, frankly, although this little offering of theirs points to a continuing naivete and contains hints of their alarmist/activist agenda, I don’t understand some of the reaction to it.
Yes, in round terms, a gallon of gas is converted to about 20 lbs of CO2. It’s difficult to actually give a highly accurate number because there are literally hundreds of gas grades in the US with densities ranging by 10% and chemical composition varying even more widely. HaroldW did a decent job at showing how to get to the 20 lb number. When one realizes that gasoline has significant aromatic content (CxHy where x is usually greater than y) going back to HaroldW’s calculation will lead quickly to the conclusion that 20 lbs. Is a perfectly reasonable number.
Are some of the other suggestions a bit naïve? Pro ably. So what? I personally don’t see a problem with suggesting off-season ground cover or composting. Will is stop something called AGW that I don’t believe in? Well, since I don’t believe in it…
But go after the underlying issue of AGW and their disinformation campaign their. This offering is otherwise not that offensive.
These moronic advocates always fall down on one particular major point: they NEVER give any figures. i.e. If everyone in the developed world suddenly switched to gardening without fossil-powered tools tomorrow, and, say, doubled the mass of shrubbery in their gardens, what would be the net effect on world temperature over the next, say, 50 years? More than 0.0000000001 degree C?
I might come across as a Chicken Little, but I’m planting a garden this year for the first time in about 10 years because the way our government is going here in the US there just might be such civil unrest by this coming fall that fresh vegetables might not be available and I love nothing more than fresh-picked corn, beans, tomatoes, etc.
And even though I’m working up a rather large garden (65 by 55 ft), I’ve used less than a gallon of gas to till it even though all of it is newly-broken ground. I figured that approach had less impact, CO2-wise, than had I spent a week digging it up with a shovel and it was a far better use of my time.
But again, I’m not gowing a garden to be green–I’m growing one to satisfy my apetite for fresh, phytochemical-rich affordable food, for these green weenies that are foisting the Cult of Climate Change have far more disdain for capitalism and liberty than they do for CO2 (the latter being simply a transparent method of gaining power over the gullible masses). I’m just grateful for the boost in life-essential CO2 since the last time I grew a garden. That’s perhaps the best source of “fertilizer” a gardener could hope for.
I have planted hundreds of trees along the railway line as a wild life corridor, (even got on a tv gardening program,) but I am an AGW sceptic who distrusts the political, ‘religious'(?) agenda of the ‘greens’ and loves the informed debate here on WUWT.
Many years ago when I was a student we had a few real Universities and a host of Technical Colleges. In the main these were quite small and prepared undergraduates for HND or External London University degrees. These Colleges have now been transformed into pip squeak universities setting their own pip squeak degrees. In order to justify their existence they carry out research work largely geared to making enough money to keep them solvent. If that is beyond them they take in large numbers of Overseas students which does little to improve their educational standing.
Now we can all sit back and await the time when at least 110% of the population enjoys the benefits of higher education.
Sort of off topic, but in the immortal words of Dorothy Parker:
” You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.”
Hey Aaron, good stuff that Candide, huh?
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