All Parks are not created equal… in terms of air quality benefits
The ability of trees to remove carbon dioxide from the air and capture carbon makes reforestation a way to combat
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carbon
Planting Trees for your Next Flight: Studying Behavior Around Carbon Offsetting
Want to fly without the carbon guilt? Offsetting programs let you pay to plant trees to take that carbon from the air, and researchers are studying how social factors and global policies might influence these environmentally-minded behaviors.
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Old is Better than Young: The Carbon Sequestration Potential of Letting Forests Mature
“Globally, terrestrial ecosystems currently remove an amount of atmospheric carbon equal to one-third of what humans emit from burning fossil fuels…. Forests are responsible for the largest share of the removal.” (Moomaw et al. 2019). What if we could increase the amount of CO2 forests extract from the air? We can!
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Using urban trees to reduce home energy use: Location, location, location
Urban trees may — in some contexts — make residential greenhouse emissions worse.
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Friend or foe? Invasive earthworms can benefit agriculture but harm forests
Earthworms are welcome guests in the garden, but it’s a different story in the forest. By consuming and removing leaf litter too fast they set in motion complex cascades of ecological changes, with long-term negative effects on soil fertility and biodiversity.
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Saving the Scrub: In defense of “ugly” landscapes
It’s easy to advocate for the value of beautiful landscapes. But what about when the plants are brown all summer? Here, a student-led team uses carbon calculations to demonstrate the importance of California Sage Scrub conservation on a global level.
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Keeping carbon in the ground
A new long-term study shows that switching to no-till practices may help restore cropland soils to pre-disturbance conditions, letting farmers join the fight against climate change.
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Oxygen sensitivity in wetlands: Implications for carbon storage
Source Article: Samantha K. Chapman, Matthew A. Hayes, Brendan Kelly, and J. Adam Langley. 2019. Exploring the oxygen sensitivity of
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Growing Conditions Improve with a Pinch
Salt marshes are full of crustacean inhabitants. In particular, fiddler crabs and purple marsh crabs of New England modify these coastal ecosystems by burrowing beneath the waterlogged soils, chewing up plants, and increasing nutrient exchange rates. But it is uncertain to what extent each species contributes to the modification of a salt marsh. Research by Alexandria Moore found the presence of crabs had a significant effect on multiple aspects of salt marsh health and that the herbivore, purple marsh crab, modifies salt marsh ecosystems beyond eating plants.
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Where the mangrove grows
A 65 meter tall mangrove. Imagine that. A tree growing in saltwater that is 20 stories tall. Considering the only mangroves I have seen look like shrubs, I couldn’t believe that some mangroves could reach such heights. But then I saw some photos on Twitter and talked with a scientist who is using new technology to estimate the enormous amount of carbon stored by these beastly coastal trees. Mind Blown.
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