Lawn’s carbon footprint

Amy Townsend-Small, UC Irvine, co-author of a new study comparing the carbon storage-versus-emission profile of Southern Californian lawns. Photo: Steve Zylius, UC Irvine

Smoking kills and lawn grooming contributes to global warming, reports the American Geophysical Union.

Actually, the AGU press release doesn’t talk about cigarettes, just grass: “Dispelling the notion that urban ‘green’ spaces [read lawn] help counteract greenhouse gas emissions, new research has found — in Southern California at least — that mowing and other lawn maintenance emit much larger amounts of greenhouse gases than the well-tended grass sequesters.

“Turfgrass lawns 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 new study to be published by the…

“Nowhere to go except heaven”

Flying higher: This butterfly, Clodius Parnassian (Parnassius clodius), is more common at the top of its elevation range on Castle Peak than in the past. Photo credit: Heather Dwyer / UC Davis.

Under pressure from habitat loss and climate change, California butterfly diversity is falling fast at low elevations, according to an analysis by UC Davis lepidopterist Arthur Shapiro.

Meanwhile, according to the study, to be published  by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, butterfly diversity is actually going up at tree line. The cause, reports the UC Davis news service, is lower-elevation species reacting to the warming climate by moving upslope to higher, cooler elevations.

However, there is only so high they can go and the report also finds that diversity among high elevation butterflies is falling as temperatures become uncomfortably warm for them and, Shapiro says, “There is nowhere to go except heaven.”

For the news service article describing…

The Dry Garden: “The tree rings’ tale”

As the United Nations Climate Change Conference concludes in Copenhagen, what is a smart kid to make of the riots? That we’re all going to die — Santa first? That in a few years down the road, discussion of climate is best had wearing a clown’s nose while taunting a Danish policeman?

Let’s hope not. Let’s dream instead that winter solstice on Monday marks brighter days ahead in which the next generation may be armed with the best knowledge of what climate change means and what can be done about it.

And, eh presto, an ideal volume is at hand. A newly released book aimed at young teens, “The Tree Rings’ Tale: Understanding our Changing Climate,” is the work of science writer John Fleck. Although there are other texts out there for children, what sets Fleck’s book apart for Californians is its emphasis on the West. It’s particularly relevant to kids who experience…

Final day. Yes we can / No we can’t

A pelican huddles in a London zoo after a freak snow storm blankets England, including the normally temperate south coast, during the final days of the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen. Click on the image to be taken to the London Guardian for full photo coverage of the blizzard and the wan final day of the climate conference.

The future of forests

Ronald M. Lanner has explored the forests of the Western United States for 50 years. In the course of this, and in devoting five of his six books to the region’s trees, he has revealed that no where else on the planet has the same diversity of conifers, be it the oldest (bristlecone pines) or the tallest (redwoods) or the biggest (sequoias).

So Chance of Rain asked environment reporter Ilsa Setziol to interview Lanner on the future of the region’s timbered ranges in the face of climate change. Her discussion with the author of “The Pinon Pine,” “Trees of the Great Basin,” “The Conifers of California,” “Made for Each Other: A Symbiosis of Birds and Pines,” and “The Bristlecone Book” is not just for those who love trees, but for all who have experienced a moment of awe and wonder in a Western forest.

Update: For the December 1, 2009 paper, ”Recent unprecedented tree-ring growth in…

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