Turfgrass Helps Reduce the Effects of Climate Change
Mark Leonard
It turns out our lawns can play a very significant role in the efforts to reduce the effects of global warming. Through the process of photosynthesis, grass takes in carbon dioxide and stores carbon in the soil. Recent studies at Ohio State University have shown that lawns can remove and store twice the amount of carbon from the air in a year then a tree can in 10.
There is an estimated 80 million home lawns in the U.S. covering an estimated 50 million acres, an area 3 times larger than the largest irrigated crop. It is estimated that up to 800 lbs of carbon per acre is sequestered by turfgrass each year; almost 1/2 ton per acre. This results in 20 million tons of carbon being removed from the atmosphere each year in the U. S. alone.