Read the link below and start your own compost bin ASAP.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/peat-free-compost/climate-change
Rich: This as in many things is a matter of awareness.
News and comments on global climate change, global warming and greenhouse effect
Well….. there goes the "Medical Marijuana" market/pot-growing industry in California! At least half of that State’s population will be up in arms!
For those of you who live in areas where "Medical Marijuana" is allowed, can "patients" smoke the stuff in public places like restaurants and stores…. or is that not allowed due to smoking bans?
Seriously….. I am really curious about that.
Yikes! How could I have known that I was the cause of all this destruction? Oh, I feel so guilty. Eliminating the "carbon sponges" and the pollution by potent-greenhouse-gas-carbon-dioxide must be the major cause of every jump in the global thermometer. I will stop using peat immediately, and gasoline, and coal-fired electricity, and natural gas, and paper, and the computer, and I will abort children. There, I feel much better now.
Hmm. I wonder if the Global Warming hype-mongers have considered the "carbon sponge" of the billions of domestic gardens across the face of Earth? Or the beneficial effects of all the trees growing in the yards of the homes of good neighborhoods everywhere? Have the Malthusians thought about the moderating effect of the cities on the harsh weather conditions of past ages? Are the kind, loving gestures of grandchildren and adult children lost on them? Or do they think that it will be okay to be old and alone in a world where the biggest concern is whether we have the same weather as fifty years ago?
Wow thanks! That was interesting. I guess the big thing is cost and education. Seeing that peat free products might be the next good thing, retailers may jack up the price. But education could greatly help.
I just use the compost from cows, work it into the soil and plant from there.
Huh interesting, I didn’t realize they put peat in compost. I got a bin and started making my own with grass clippings and leaves and such. No store-bought materials, so I guess I’m fine.
I think the scale is a little small to be worried about in the grander scheme of things.
It would be interesting to see the world-wide figures and not just the UK…
That being said, I don’t agree with destroying one habitat in favor of another, so for me at least, it’s not a question of global warming concern, but basic protection of the natural environment.
_
I’m not much of a gardener, but thanks for making me aware, put me down as "peat free" from now.
Funnily enough, although i don’t believe in man-made catastrophic global warming, i would never use peat compost. Not because it does anything to the climate, but because it is a very harmful process that adds nothing to society. You want to extract oil from the sands in Canada to heat the homes of the elderly cheaply this winter? Fine by me. You want to rip up wetlands for peat so somebody can grow slightly better flowers? Nope. What’s wrong with just using the bloody soil you’ve got?
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</rant mode off>
Yes, I have boycotted peat compost for years now.
Unfortunately my own compost is a bit rich for seeds; i use 3 or 4 year old stuff for them, sometimes sterilising it in the microwave for very miffy seeds, but my germination rates are still a little patchy. It just takes a bit more skill making up your own. small price to pay to save the peat bogs. But peat free compost is as good or better than the peat based stuff for other uses.
Peat-free garden centre composts better than peat, says Which? Gardening
http://www.hortweek.com/news/985444/Peat-free-garden-centre-composts-better-peat-says-Which-Gardening/
Peat bogs are immensely important carbon stores.
The enzymatic latch mechanism
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn316-climate-key.html
The case of the missing sink
http://www.mcgill.ca/reporter/32/15/roulet/
Irish peat bogs
http://www.noticenature.ie/files/peatlands.pdf
startling pictures of mechanised turf cutting here;
http://geosyntheticsmagazine.com/articles/0609_f3_bog.html
restoration projects;
http://www.moorsforthefuture.org.uk/mftf/main/Home.htm
http://www.fettes.com/Caithness/Peat.htm
This is hilarious. Millions of square miles of northern forest land in europe, asia and north america are peat bogs, and a little bit of it in a couple of gardens is going to change the climate! If it’s a CO2 sponge in a bog, it will probably be a CO2 sponge in a garden in London.
Get a sense of scope… you and the guardian.
That is true as far as it goes but making compost does much the same thing. The main difference is that Composting at a back-yard scale does not require heavy equipment. I did a project at a peat mine in New Jersey. The peat was extracted from a red maple forest of no great value to wildlife. What was left behind was a series of ponds that were of immense value to the wildlife. The largest common snapping turtle I have ever seen in the wild was there and the area hosts a huge colony of mute swans [and, yes, I know that they are an introduced species]. The list of bird species was well into the hundreds. The only bad side was that some purple loosestrife had taken hold.