- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Popular Science, the world's largest science and technology magazine, spotlighted the work of UC Riverside Cooperative Extension turf scientist Jim Baird in its May 2010 "Statistically Speaking" feature. Titled "The Perfect Lawn," the full-page story said Baird is bioengineering grass that drinks less water and still earns praise for its lush, emerald green appearance.
"The process is sort of a gladiator academy for grass," PopSci says. The scientists grow promising hybrids, then turn off the water to see which ones survive.
The article opens with statistics on turf grass' ability to sequester carbon. U.S. lawns, it...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A delegation from China's Ministry of Agriculture visited a Marin County ranch on Wednesday to view a collaborative research project aimed at sequestering carbon in rangeland. The visit was covered by Contra Costa Times reporter Mark Prado.
The research collaborators, which includes UC Cooperative Extension, are studying whether application of compost on rangeland will boost plant growth, which in turn would store more carbon. Research leader UC Berkeley professor Whendee Silver shared with the delegation promising early results gleaned from the first year of the five-year project.
"Plants are...
/span>- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
As protests at the Copenhagen "climate summit" heat up and talks reach a critical stage, the media are looking at a variety of ways humans can slow carbon emissions into the atmosphere, such as changing the way we farm.
In an Ask Pablo column on a Web site called Treehugger, writer Pablo Paster considers whether people should go back to using horses instead of tractors to farm. At first glance, I thought the piece was meant to be humorous, but in fact, Paster researched whether such a change would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Among the data Paster used to support the idea was a 2008 UC Davis...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Every Tuesday, students at the University of San Francisco are presented with "low carbon" diet choices in the school cafeteria, according to a story in the San Jose Mercury News. Gone is cheese pizza and hamburgers. Such savory treats are being substituted with options that are equally delicious - like guacamole and cucumber relish - but are produced on farms that release less greenhouse gasses than dairies and livestock operations.
USF is one example of institutions looking at changing food consumption to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases floating into earth's atmosphere. According to the article, the United...