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Article #4282Re: Is Mowing your Lawn bad for the Environment?
From: Tom Slone
Date: Wed, 24 May 1989 16:49
Date: Wed, 24 May 1989 16:49
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In article <8323@pyr.gatech.EDU> steve%revolver@gatech.edu writes:
>In article <1989May23.190505.18229@utpsych.toronto.edu+ raymond@psych.toronto.edu (Raymond Shaw) writes:
>+Would the lawn produce more oxygen (which I presume is good for the environment)
>+if I didn't mow it, and just let it grow?
> You can stop worrying. Grass is biomass and perennial. It draws its
>energy and nutrients from the sun and the soil. When it dies, the elements
>return from whence they came. No net gain or loss in oxygen.
The net loss to the environment has already happened when the lawn was
installed in the first place:
- Loss of native species (including native grasses) and habitat
- Loss of species diversity (when the ecosystem was changed to
a monocrop)
- Reduction of biomass (from multi-foot high trees and shrubs
to inch high grass)
- Consequent loss of carbon bank, released as CO2 to the atmosphere
- Potential releases of poisons to the environment from lawn
maintenance chemicals and their production
potency@violet.berkeley.edu
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!violet.berkeley.edu!potency From: potency@violet.berkeley.edu (Tom Slone) Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.environment Subject: Re: Is Mowing your Lawn bad for the Environment? Keywords: lawns, oxygen production Message-ID: <24792@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: 24 May 89 16:49:01 GMT References: <1989May23.190505.18229@utpsych.toronto.edu+ <8323@pyr.gatech.EDU> Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU Distribution: usa Organization: dis Lines: 22