More Global Warming BS
Feb 5th, 2010 by Rick Arms
Lawns May Contribute to Global Warming
Lush green lawns may not be as good for the environment as you might think.
A new study suggests that, in certain parts of the country, total emissions would actually be lower if there weren’t any lawns.
Previous studies have demonstrated that lawns comprised of turfgrass can potentially function as carbon sinks since they help remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But the maintenance of lawns — fertilizer production, mowing, leaf blowing and other lawn management practices — may generate greenhouse gas emissions that ultimately exceed four times the carbon they end up storing, according to the study.
“Lawns look great — they’re nice and green and healthy, and they’re photosynthesizing a lot of organic carbon,” said researcher Amy Townsend-Small,who co-authored the study. “But the carbon-storing benefits of lawns are counteracted by fuel consumption.”
To reach their conclusion, the researchers sampled grass from four parks around Irvine, Calif. that contained either ornamental lawn turf or athletic field turf, which tended to be more trampled and required replanting and frequent aeration. Samples were taken from the soil and air above the turf, and analyzed to measure carbon sequestration and nitrous oxide emissions. The investigators then compared that data to the amount of carbon dioxide emissions that resulted from maintaining the turf, which included fuel consumption, irrigation and fertilizer production.
The results, detailed in the forthcoming issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, showed that nitrous oxide emissions from lawns were comparable to those found in agricultural farms, which are considered among the largest emitters of nitrous oxide globally. In ornamental lawns, nitrous oxide emissions from fertilization offset just 10 percent to 30 percent of the carbon that was sequestered. But day-to-day management required fossil fuel consumption that released about four times more carbon dioxide than the plots could take up.
Athletic fields fared even worse. They didn’t trap nearly as much carbon as ornamental grass but required just as much emission-generating care.
“It’s impossible for these lawns to be net greenhouse gas sinks because too much fuel is used to maintain them,” Townsend-Small said.
“they’re photosynthesizing a lot of organic carbon,” said researcher Amy Townsend-Small
That’s funny. I thought the carbon being photosynthesized was from CO2, one of the few INorganic carbon compounds.
How is this differant then saying “cutting down the rainforest is causing global warming”. Ill give you a hint, its not.
They could have just made the article much simpler by saying cutting grass is, in effect the same as cutting trees they both store carbon and they both release it again when cut down or dead.
Ha stupid frikkin IPCC dumbwads. It was just released today in our papers that the IPCC missed out on thier 2007 report of the Himalaya’s loosing thier glaciers by 2035.
The actual numbers the scientists mentioned (which IPCC changed for the expected fear factor) was 2335.
Again IPCC is proven to be unreliable and nothing but liars.
Whats funny though is that when ever there is a article about somehting i have read here it is always in our papers a week or more later. One would wonder why livescience has not mentioned anything about this.
Is it not “bad enough science” for you Mr Radford or is it considered bad science only when trying to make the IPCC look good? Im sure you have heard about it elsewhere.
“A new study suggests that, in certain parts of the country, total emissions would actually be lower if there weren’t any lawns. ”
As compared to what? Is it lawns vs. just leaving the ground alone? Because if it is then this is stupid - obviously there are less emissions as compared to doing nothing.
I just started a study that shows if you stay home there is less emissions than if you drive to work - can I get some grant money?
I use an electric lawnmower. Should I still burn my yard?
I am not sure I understand much about carbon sequestration and nitrous oxide emissions, but something seems wrong with this argument. Would there be less carbon emission if there were fewer human beings around? Perhaps focussing on reducing the chemical treatment might be better than even suggesting that we have less grass around the house.
I’ve already addressed this stupidity elsewhere, but for the sake of being nice I’ll share once again.
The findings say that it is the lawn-keeping methods we are so fond of that is polluting and just plain nasty for the environment, not the lawns themselves!
As easy as it is to blame the grass, the lawns are benign. WE do the polluting with the massive amounts of fertilizer and big gas-guzzling machinery WE use to force grass to grow where WE wish it to be.
Nice attempt at passing the buck, though. (Ok, maybe that wasnt so nice. GOOD!)
Any minimal impact the vile monocultures called lawns would have on tiny human input to climate change would completely outweighed by their destruction of local eco-systems. You’d be better off just letting your yard go wild . . which I mostly do. Trees, shrubs and the like are far better, since they provide more cover from the sun, absorbing more of the sun’s energy and converting it to food, than even a lawn. Additionally, the shade provided by trees decreases cooling needs.
What a dumb, ridiculous theory. First it is proven that data was manipulated by Canadian bloggers, then it was shown that unrealiable tree ring data was used in much of the studies, then temperature charts were faked now this!!! Oh yeah, the UN also said the glaciers aren’t melting after all!!! Nice story. I thought this was a science not fiction website.
OMG! Global warming still an issue? After the hacked e-mails of the CRU and IPCC? This is just like ‘Jason’ of the Friday the 13th fame. He is up to Part XI. IT…JUST…WON’T…DIE!!!
Well here is another breaking story from the news desk of Flipacoin. Climategate has now come home to the United States. Now in the spotlight is is on NOAA and GISS. Last Thursday, certified consulting meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo and computer expert Michael Smith appeared together on KUSI-TV to discuss Climategate-American Style scandal they discovered.
NOAA stands accused by the two researchers of strategically deleting cherry-picked, cooler reporting weather stations from the temperature data IT PROVIDES THE WORLD thru its National Climatic Data Center. They think Noaa is complicit, if not the real ground zero for the issue.
The key point discovered by Smith was that by 1990, NOAA had DELETED from it’s datasets 4500 of the 6000 thermometers in the world. 75% represents quite of a drop in its sampling population considering that these stations provide the readings used by to compile both the Global Historical Climatology Network [GHCN] and the United States Historical Climatology Network [USHCN] datasets. THESE SERVE AS PRIMARY SOURCES FOR CLIMATE RESEARCHERS AND UNIVERSITES WORLDWIDE along with many international agencies that ‘create’ analytical temperature anomanly maps and charts. What is very troubling is the cooler rural and higher latitude stations were closed. The warmer Suburban and lower latitude ones were kept opened. The Urban Heat Island Effect was used for the to skew the temps higher.
In Canada, they went from 496 in 1989 to just 44 in 1991. There was only one station kept open north of 65 latitude at is called, ‘Eureka’ which is described as the “Garden spot of the Artic” known for its mild summers!!!
In other words folks, they were cherry picking all the way back to 1990, 1991 and ‘cooking the books’! These two experts re-adjusted for this skewed data and have found there has been no significant global warming at all!
Read climatedepot.com under article ” Climategate: CRU was but the tip of the Iceberg” for more info. It will tell about NASA’s GISS collusion, suppression, and book cooking that I didn’t touch on here.
So…can Jason and the global warming scam finally die?
I found this article useful in a paper I am writing at university. Hopefully, I get an A+ now!
Thanks
Bernice Franklin
UGG Boots