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On the last day of the 2008 Wild Ones Annual Meeting, a Sunday morning, the closing plenary thoughts were delivered by the keynote speaker, and newly nominated Honorary Director, Neil Diboll, with enthusiastic audience participation, in what turned out to be a heady consciousness-raising meeting. You should have been there.

Neil entitled his presentation What's On the Horizon? The Future of Natural Landscaping in America and opened by stating that "we are entering a new world order. A world of increasing scarcity. A world of spiraling costs for basic commodities. And a world in which we must finally learn to live within the means of Planet Earth." For the rest of the presentation.

CLIMATE CHANGE....

One major item not mentioned in most press releases, editorial comments and other related news media with regard to climate change is maintenance of landscaping. Namely, not using leaf blowers and electric pruners, not mowing lawns more than once a week and/or instead using human propelled mowers. Using native plants and no mow grass to eliminate the need for additives such as fertilizer, herbicides, insecticides and water. These are all things which could be easily accomplished right now and would greatly help to reduce the carbon footprint.

Climate change and native plants in our landscapes

National Wild Ones President Joe Powelka outlined the following three steps in the March/April issue of the Wild Ones Journal. Joe stated, "besides the basic individual responsibilities to conserve resources and reduce our consumption, we should have as our primary focus the use of native plants in our landscapes. Native landscapes offer the following three global warming solutions, among others:

• With global warming comes an increased need for potable water. Native plants require less water to survive with changing environments. Native plants, with their deep root systems, will return more water to the ground preventing rainwater runoff. Native plants are what make rain gardens work. Wetland native species offer natural filtration systems to improve water quality.

• Carbon sequestration - taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. The root structures of many of our native prairie plants extend deep into the ground, unlike most non-natives. This root structure allows the native plants to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Carbon is one of the major constituents of global warming and removing it from the weather cycle slows the warming process. The main carbon "sinks" are grasslands, forest, and organisms in the oceans and soil.

• Reductions in fossil fuel and chemical use - native landscapes, in general, require less maintenance in the form of mowing, fertilization and chemical disbursement. In fact, native landscapes can survive without any of these man-made solutions for control. But for those needing some order in their landscape, no mow lawns and native plants significantly reduce the emissions associated with lawn and garden care combustion equipment, and the use of water polluting fertilizers and life-destroying chemicals. When we stop using fossil fuels and chemicals in our yards, we also reduce the need to transport and produce these items, further reducing the impact on our environment.

Individuals and families alike can have a big impact on reducing the carbon footprint by something as simple as how they maintain their yards. Using environmentally sound landscaping practices to preserve and restore ecological biodiversity and clean water by reducing the use of herbicides, insecticides, fertilizers and water will go a long way toward making a difference in climate change.

Factoids

Carol Andrews, national Vice-President, provides us with some facts related to causes of climate change. For example, each weekend, about 54 million Americans mow their lawns, use 800 million gallons of gas per year and produce tons of air pollutants. Clean air web site. Garden equipment engines, which have had unregulated emissions until very recently, emit high levels of carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides, producing up to 5% of the nation's air pollution and a good deal more in metropolitan areas.

A conventional lawn mower pollutes as much in an hour as 40 late model cars (or as much air pollution as driving a car for 100 miles).

The key info here is the amount of petroleum consumed by the lawn mowers, although some of the other pollutants of traditional concern (VOCs, CO...) referred to also contribute to what is being referred to as global warming (reference Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2004 by EPA as found here).

From the web site advertising "An Inconvenient Truth, "saving one gallon of gas eliminates 20 lbs of carbon dioxide emissions." Just for fun, one can use that to calculate what the impact would be of a 50% reduction in lawns, assuming that would cut lawn care gas consumption at least by 1/2, then:

0.5 x 800 million gallons of gas x 20 lbs of CO2 emissions reduced per gallon of gas = 8 billion lbs of CO2 = 4 million tons of CO2 emissions prevented by mowing 50% less lawn based on their data and my calcs. If that lawn was converted to native plants, there would be additional reductions in energy use related to less need to pump water, install and maintain irrigation systems, etc. While the deep-rooted prairie plants are growing, they would absorb much more carbon than the lawn did, but once established we expect they would come into a carbon-neutral state (like rain forests and other in-tact ecosystems, whereas new-growth forests serve as a carbon sink).

For more information about Wild Ones and sustainable landscaping through the use of native plants, go to our web site or call toll free 877-394-9453.

Other Comments from Wild Ones members:

From Annette Weissbach -- Decades ago, the German government encouraged the growing of natives and "wild" landscapes in general. At that time it was to promote wildlife habitat, and now it's just a matter of course that suburban yards have natural landscapes. That same kind of sea change could occur here in the US to help address climate change concerns.

Websites to increase your knowledge about climate change

Habitat Gardening in Central NY focuses on global warming

From the National Wildlife Federation: Gardener's Guide to GLobal Warming, Global Warming Grows Trouble for Gardeners, Signs of Global Warming in Gardens Across the Country, Gardeners' Role in Reducing Global Warming

Arbor Day Foundation Interactive Map and a Narrative regarding the map

Articles focused prairie plants: K-State Researchers Study Response Of Prairie Ecosystem; In Face Of Changes In Precipitation Variability, Climatic Extremes, Prairies Will Be Hit Harder By Global Warming, Tallgrass May Provide Early Warning of Climate Change

Other Articles: Common Native Plant Of Great Plains May Be Threatened By Climate Change, Annual Plants May Cope With Global Warming Better Than Long-living Species, Climate Change Threatens Pollination Timing

Connect with major environmental organizations and take action on current issues at SaveOurEnvironment.org

TNC has a on-line tool that combines the latest scientific data and climate models with geographic information systems (GIS), statistical analysis, and web-based mapping to show the current situation and 50- and 100-year climate projections related to temperature and rainfall in the entire US and individual states.

Wild Ones participates in the Focus the Nation project which is coordinating teams of faculty and students at over a thousand colleges, universities and K-12 schools in the United States, which collaboratively engage in a nationwide, interdisciplinary discussion about “Global Warming Solutions for America”. To learn more about this project go to Focus the Nation.

Other Links of Interest

Common Circle Education is an ecological design and holistic living school, which creates sustainable communities -- permaculture ecovillages, organic farms and people healing the world through sustainable practices. Common Circle Education specializes in permaculture design educational courses.