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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>
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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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