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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Smokey says:
May 11, 2010 at 6:40 am
Gail Combs,
That is a very scary Farm Wars link.
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Yes, the stuff going on at the border is really pretty bad from some of the first hand accounts I have heard. Armored vehicles and military style operations according to one friend from Texas who was an eyewitness. Remember these are the same people Congress wants in the country permanently.
see this article for more information: http://www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty566.htm
L says: May 10, 2010 at 11:00 pm “Am I the only one here that knows gasoline is heavier than water? “
I hope so. Where do you get your information from? Hollywood? Take some “gasoline”, we call it petrol, and pour it in a bowl of water.
Ian L. McQueen says: May 11, 2010 at 6:31 am…. “Making the wild assumption that gasoline is all straight-chain octane, C8H18, molecular weight is 114. Specific gravity is somewhere around 0.9,..”
Most gasoline is iso-octane and its specific gravity is 0.688 and not 0.9. Even straight octane’s sp gravity is far less than 0.9
So taking your assumption that all of it is iso-octane, 1 US liquid gallon of gasoline = 3.785481784 litres = 3.785481784 x 0.688 Kgs = 2.604411467 Kgs = 2.604411467 x 2.2 lbs = 5.73 pounds and not 7.5 lbs as you have worked out
5.73 lbs of butane would have 5.73 x 96/114 lbs of Carbon, which would produce 5.73 x 96/114 x 44/12 = 17.69 pounds of CO2, if there was 100% combustion.
Assuming 80% of the fuel will fully combust to form CO2 we are left with 17.69 x 0.8 = 14.15 pounds of CO2 from a gallon of gasoline from a typical mower
Smokey says:
May 11, 2010 at 6:40 am
Gail Combs,
That is a very scary Farm Wars link.
And the prospect is that all this green religious fanaticism it is going to end in a Holy War, so it should be stopped at any cost, but it seems that it is being constantly fed by an unending source of money.
Mullah Nassr Al bedwetter Imam is to blame as the visible leader but also those who cheated him telling him he was the most intelligent man on earth and he was going to be the saviour of Gaia.
Smokey says:
May 11, 2010 at 6:55 am
The same mindset is running the UN’s World Health Organisation [WHO]. This is the result.
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Smokey, Don’t you understand you have to be able to impose taxes to have David Rockefeller’s “supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers” You just can not have a world government without the power to tax. /sarc
(Sorry Smokey I couldn’t resist )
Gail Combs says:
May 11, 2010 at 7:53 am:
I am a biochemist of many years, and the problem with the anti-GM folks is that they have a little bit of knowledge that, on the whole, ends up with foolishness. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools” (Romans chapter 1).
Of course all genes may undergo R-factor transmission (recombination) to other species. This is mostly facilitated in more primitive species, like bacteria and plants. (It does not happen in animals, thank goodness, or my eyes would turn brown, not just from spouting BS!). The question of GM is whether it is safe or not. To pass a drought resistant gene to another crop, in the short run, may not be a bad thing. But remember, all mutations, or GM are not energy neutral. The organism has to, in accordance with 2nd Law of thermodynamics type of issues, give up something that makes it less able to compete on another front, and the improvement reverts quite rapidly in succeeding generations.
So, the gene in the long run, wears out, so to speak, and reverts to the wild type. Witness selective breeding in chickens or other animals, for instance. You can make them pretty and fluffy and big for a few generations, but given a few generations more and they will revert to the wild type, a plain ordinary old chicken.
The ignorance of the U of CC is rampant in the “hormone” arena, especially. BGH (bovine growth hormone) is bioidentical to the natural “hormone”. I dislike the term hormone, because it is a clever ruse to make non-scientific laymen think of bad hormones, like DES, or other synthetic steroids that have since been banned from food animals, and that, rightly so. Call BGH it by its real name, rather than the trivial name. It is bovine somatotropin (BST). Without ST, all animals would not be able to live. It controls fat and protein balance in animals and humans. As we age, ST, goes down, and is the most significant cause of ageing in humans.
More to the point, BST in milk occurs at extremely low levels. Importantly, it cannot be absorbed by ingestion, because this protein has a molecular weight of 21,000! It MUST be injected to be absorbed at all. If we eat it in the milk, the body considers it as just another protein, and is broken down immediately in the stomach and used as food, just as egg albumin or any other protein food source. It is impossible to have a “hormone” effect on us humans!
SO, the Union of CC, like the blind squirrel who survives by tripping over an acorn every once in a while, may be right occasionally, but on the whole they are full of misinformation. They exist by propagandizing and scare tactics, and should be discounted in preference for a real, educated scientific body.
“Though it didn’t involve gene cloning, the green revolution still wasn’t “green” in the modern sense. High yields demanded artificial fertiliser, chemical pesticides and new soil technology. But where would all the extra food have come from without these inputs? Organic farm ing has fed people for centuries but it hasn’t the capacity to feed the world’s burgeoning population. If all our organic waste were somehow diverted into spreading over our fields, it wouldn’t be sufficient to fertilise half our current world cereal crop.
Bullsh*t may be unlimited in the GM debate, but on the ground, supplies are much more limited.” Johnjoe McFadden
greg2213 says:
May 11, 2010 at 7:09 am
… use it for my worm bin.
http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/compost/easywormbin.htm
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Thanks for the pointer I was thinking of trying some worm “farming” for fishing.
DirkH says:
May 11, 2010 at 7:40 am
“This could explain why people feel so hot after running a marathon. Greenhouse effect. Plus, they sweat high water vapor! Do you observe desertification or rising sea levels during a run?”
Actually – your core temperature increases after running that long, which in turn makes you feel cold relative to the ambient. That’s why they give you those silver plastic capes at the end of the marathon. I should also mention that runners are emitting more than just CO2 during the marathon ;^)
I beg to differ on no time to plant cover crops. I was raised on a farm. We had no money for weed control or fertilizer. We used what we had. Chickens provided lots of fertilizer. So did white fish. Pea vine rows kept weeds down inbetween other row crops and fixed nitrogen into the soil. Grandma always planted pole beans in the corn rows for the same reason. Cow and horse tea provided additional fertilizer. Straw kept a lot of weeds at bay, along with strips of used carpet. Soapy spray took care of a lot of bugs during the season and we encouraged biocontrol (ladybugs, praying mantis, birds, etc). At the end of the season the chickens were let into the garden to take care of bugs and larvae in the soil. Left over plants were never plowed in until Spring, creating a very nice cover for the garden bed. We did those things because we had too. If my budget gets that tight again, you can bet your sweet momma I will be using those same practices.
Never could understand the use of bins to grow worms or compost paper and veggie scraps. My grandma did it right in the soil. She chose the shady, always moist spot near the house foundation (there is a water spigot there that always leaks a bit in the summer) and laid moist cardboard boxes flat on the ground in the earliest part of the spring when the ground is still a bit frozen. About two to three weeks later she would remove the cardboard, throw on newspaper strips and lawn clippings with handfulls of nearby soil and started burying kitchen leftover veggies in that spot along with additional grass clippings, leaves, etc. Then whenever she went fishing, the worms were right there without even having to shovel them up. Just a small trowel was all she used. I do the same thing in the same spot. Just last weekend I started the process after removing the cardboard boxes. The sight of all those worms made me dream of fishing that night.
The acronym for their organization should be ASAB, for the Association of Scientists Around the Bend. Born in 1935, and reared on a farm in Iowa, I remember how difficult (and uncertain) dealing with pests was before modern synthetic pesticides, including weed killers.
Either we deal with pests and weeds by killing them, or the pests and weeds will do us in. Life for a farmer (and everyone else) is indeed better with chemistry.
The “dirt” that the worms produce is an excellent fertilizer. Do the bin at all right and you’ll have enough worms for the entire season and your plants will be happier.
bubbagyro says:
May 11, 2010 at 8:33 am
Gail Combs says:
May 11, 2010 at 7:53 am:
I am a biochemist of many years, and the problem with the anti-GM folks is that they have a little bit of knowledge that, on the whole, ends up with foolishness….
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Thanks for the information. As I said I am more or less neutral on GMOs as long as they are tested for safety. The politics of GMO is something else again. The name of the game seems to be to patent all seeds so royalties ca be collected. Again if a farmer wants to plant a patented variety and pay extra so be. I just get angry when governments are used to coerce farmers into buy the seed.
“December 2006 – “In the EU, there is now a list of ‘official’ vegetable varieties. Seed that is not on the list cannot be ‘sold’ to the ‘public’ To keep something on the list costs thousands of pounds each year…Hundreds of thousands of old heirloom varieties (the results of about eleven thousand years of plant breeding by our ancestors) are being lost forever .” http://www.defra.gov.uk/planth/pvs/pbr/app-procedure.htm & http://www.realseeds.co.uk/terms.html & http://www.euroseeds.org/pdf/ESA_03.0050.1.pdf”
The worse one is
June 2006 – Global Diversity Treaty: “Standard Material Transfer Agreement (SMTA) a standardized contract that will enable much easier access to crop diversity. [ germplasm for patenting] royalty payment (1.1% of sales) is paid only if product is unavailable for further breeding and research. funds will be devoted to conservation efforts.” Translation: Bio-techs Corporations steal seed from third world farmers, patents it and pay money to Bioversity International. http://www.bioversityinternational.org/publications/pdf/1144.pdf
coupled that with:
“FAO is supporting harmonization of seed rules and regulations in Africa and Central Asia in order to stimulate the development of a vibrant seed industry …An effective seed regulation harmonization process involves dialogue amongst all relevant stakeholders from both private and public sectors. Seed quality assurance, variety release, plant variety protection, biosafety, plant quarantine and phytosanitary issues are among the major technical areas of a regional harmonized seed system. The key to a successful seed regulation harmonization is a strong political will of the governments involved” http://www.fao.org/ag/portal/archive/detail/en/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=5730&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=1886&cHash=7f04326e35
In a word I support capitalism but I hate “corporatism” the unholy mix of international corporations and government where the chase for the almighty dollar promotes the trampling and even killing of people. I hate “corporatism” even worse when it is hidden under the cloak of “Altruism”
biddyb,
Think of some of those pest that cause you a bit of trouble as the meat to go with the gravy, peas, and potatoes, just before that big slice of hot homemade apple pie.
That will make things seem a bit better.
I also do a bit of gardening and keep a few chickens, I usually use a “healthy” amount of compost to cover my raised beds (made using downed tree branches) with. My compost comes from a number of sources some form my own compost piles, the chicken coop litter (pine shavings and well you know), and the neighbors composting manure stack (alas they moved so that source isn’t getting replenished anymore).
What gets raised gets used fresh, cooked, frozen, or canned.
In short I make use of as much organic “waste” as I can that is close by.
It is all a valid part of reduce, reuse, or recycle.
Gail Combs says:
May 11, 2010 at 9:42 am
That IS bad stuff, although there has to be incentive for agribusiness to develop new strains so we can reduce chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
Some patented wheats incorporate a legume root gene so that nitrogen can become fixated. It cost hundreds of millions of $$$ to develop, but is a very good thing for developing countries with poor soil. The catch that they have larger start-up costs is a small price to pay when they would have zilch otherwise. Let the UN or some other group do something positive for a change and pay the fees! [BTW, if the third-world seeds were so great, why do they need our grain?]
The cost of registry is another thing. I don’t know the pros and cons of this issue, but I’m sure there is a valid reason besides revenue enhancement. (Although the Cap-and-Trade has no purpose except for revenue enhancement, so I hedge my case!)
greg2213
Could you make enough room in your worm’s bin to put the incomparable Mullah Nassr Al bedwetter Imam in it?
Let’s praise the The Union of Concerned Idiots to make us laugh today!
mbabbitt says:
May 10, 2010 at 9:11 pm
I am an avid home gardener and never thought I would end up sick of the word “green”, but here I am today sick of all references to green and all of the other holy bs.
Once upon a time green referred to the chlorophyll molecule, and the promise of reverse-engineering it. Now green is just a Color Revolution.
We cannot turn a fool into a sage, but we can laugh at him.
All those who want to fix the world and fix our lives according to their naive dreams should remember that “You will harvest what you have sowed”, so please do not complain afterwards.
The only positive thing these clowns could add to gardening would be to figure out how to bag the bovine scat they have been pushing for decades and sell it.
Doesn’t pesticides kills carbon-exhaling insects?
Great comments all and here is the problem I have with the whole thing: It’s 90% propaganda and (about) 10% relatively correct (valuable) info. The complete pamphlet is 324 Col inches, with only 37 Col inches (and that’s being generous) of REAL world info – a bit on “chemicals”, “cover crops”, some on “trees” and a bit on “grass”. And that is it and, not unexpected from this Org., (Is it?) But THAT is my problem with it!
90% – fluff, supposition, misinformation, contradictory science, unsubstantiated theory, uncorroborated references, non-real world ideas and proven wrong (here and other places) statements that IMHO total into scientific malfeasance! Is it conceivable to anyone reading this, that anyone could put out a more summarily disgraceful and dishonest document then this piece of ________!?! (fill in the blank) And so what? Well, they were either foolish or stupid enough to say it right in the brochure: TODAY THE BACKYARD, TOMORROW THE NATION.
READ that again. Think about the real meaning in that.
Folks, these are NOT scientists! Sure, there are a few on their board but they don’t give a hoot about “global climate”. They know damn well that NONE OF THIS will make any difference to the temp. at 14,000 ft above Timbuktu in 30 years.
They are Marxist Progressives! They don’t “see” the world the way it IS, they mentally (that’s why some have termed it a mental disease) see it through their Rose Colored Glasses as they want it to be. And they “hate” capitalist/capitalism and the concept of YOUR individual freedom and inalienable rights to make decisions about your life. Why? Because there is no reconciliation fathomable in “their perfect world” for the limitations they see in the human spirit. And their minds can NOT accept that imperfections are NATURAL, or as we would call it, HUMAN NATURE. And therefore YOU, the “unwashed”, are THE problem. YOU are not educated enough, have not “seen the light” and therefore must be lead (forced) away from your “addictions” to happiness, liberty and yes, even life. Not “them” of course. THEY are the enlighten ones. And what better place to start then when you are a child – – or with YOUR children. Which is THE focus of this latest indoctrination document from the Union of Concerned Marxists – Moralists – ah, Scientists.
Put that on your wall folks and go to their website and see what else they have written – – then Google “propaganda machine”….
Newspapers, Posters, Films, Books, Comics, Magazines, Radio, TV, websites, blogs, your church, your local “science” museum (is next), your k-12 Public school & even Gardening Brochures to be handed out no doubt at your local library (and school).
YOU will be re-educated! YOU will be assimilated! Resistance is futile! We are the chosen ones. And if we can’t “get” you, we’ll get the next generation.
All with the help of the benevolent US federal government….
Well the beauty of green gardening and organic food, is that you can go into a place like Whole Foods, and pay extra to get your lettuce with built in animal protein at the same time. You can even buy organic water nowadays in bottles. I think it comes from some place where the water is 370 million years old, and it contains no Deuterium oxide. So the ladies and beerbellies can put on all that water bloat and still meet their bathroom scale weight limit; without all that heavy water in them.
Just think, that you can buy apples that have already been inspected for quality by their own Codlin moth caterpillar; and you can chew on the inspector as well.
I always had an urge as a kid to try and eat those Huhu grubs that grow up into those horrible looking huge Wetas, in the NZ bush. I must have thought they might metamorph inside me, so I’d have those hideous scratchy things inside my stomach.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find that somebody at Whole Foods has figured out how much animal protein is the right mix with the veggies; so that they don’t leave the wilds with an over-abundance of hungry insects to chow down on their organofood. If you eat the right mix; then Gaia keeps everything in balance.
By the way, the plant seed patenting thing is not necessarily the big bugaboo that is often presented. Monsanto has all these GM corns and such. Well some of them you aren’t aloud to eat unless they get eaten by a cow first; and then you can either eat the cow or drink the milk. How smart is that; not in your Tortillas; but ok in your meat.
Many of these seeds have weird interspecies genes in them; and the last thing that anybody wants is to have those genes hop the fence into tomething else. So that is why all those GM things are designed to be sterile; so they can’t reproduce, and end up crossing with the weed from hell. So you have to buy the seeds from Monsanto every year. Call it a monopoly if you like; but how would you control unintended crosses.
I used to work for Monsanto, in their Central Research Labs in St Louis Mo.; but we only made Gallium Arsenide which is even worse for eating than GMcorn. Far as I recall, there wasn’t any GM crop business in those days; just nylon, silicon, Aspirin, detergent (all of them) and hydraulic fluid for jets; well astroturf and also Sacharin; their very first product.
bubbagyro says:
May 11, 2010 at 10:05 am
That IS bad stuff, although there has to be incentive for agribusiness to develop new strains so we can reduce chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
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There is plenty of incentive for farmers to buy hybrid or good GMO seed and even heirloom varieties if they work and are cost effective for the farmer.
I am waiting for the development of a new wormer for animals and so are a lot of other farmers. I am willing to pay double what I pay for ivermectin if there is no worm resistance.