What are the best types of plants and trees to offset global warming?

Question

My college is working on a project to become neutral in its
emission of greenhouse gasses into the environment. I wanted to know what type of landscaping absorbs the most CO2 and has the least negative impact on the global warming problem. I appreciate your advice.

Answer 1

A tree in a tropical rainforest.

Next is a tree in a warm climate, where the wood is harvested so it doesn't decay.

Worst is a pine tree in a snowy climate. They can actually make global warming worse.

A main factor is that, at night, trees breath. They take in O2 and release CO2. More night, more CO2. The other is that trees are dark. If they block reflective snow, it's bad.

Assuming you're in a temperate climate, landscaping for global warming is mostly a matter of landscaping to minimize heating/cooling. Deciduous trees on the South side of buildings to reduce air conditioning in Summer, while allowing solar input in Winter. Evergreen trees on the North to block the wind. Avoid the use of plants demanding a lot of water/fertilizer. Kentucky Bluegrass lawns are a major offender.

John Sols ideas are also good. He made me think of something else. Living roofs.

Answer 2

Among the best types of plants and trees that helps offset global warming are the Eucalyptus in Hawaii, Loblollly Pines in the Southeast, the Bottom land Hardwoods in Mississippi and the Poplars in the Great lake.

According to Dave Nowak who is a researcher at the U.S. Forests Service's Northern Research Station in Syracuse, New York, he listed the following trees: the Common Horse-chestnut, Black Walnut, American Sweetgum, Ponderosa Pine, Red Pine, White Pine, London Plane, Hispaniolan Pine, Douglas Fir, Scarlet Oak, Red Oak, Virginia Live Oak and Bald Cypress.

These trees are known to be good especially in absorbing and storing water.

Furthermore, other than these lists mentioned, any tree regardless of its shape, size or genetic origin will do but the Region as well the Climate of the place should also be taken into consideration.

Answer 3

the big dogs need to quit burning the marshes for the duck hunters BIG BUCKS, and let trees grow. Our newspaper today said in the next 100 years, our Texas coast will be drastically changed by global warming. The beach will be where the refineries are now ! If they would leave the marshes alone, and quit burning them, trees start growing, and there are roots, and vegetation, to stop beach erosion. It seems like many people don't care because they think they'll be dead anyway, but, our families will live on. Somebody should give a s*** about that. I say let the trees grow and thrive . Instead of burning, lets start planting.....close to the beach first, and go inland from there. If Mr. Big A** wants a duck, they sell them at the grocery store, and he can go buy a duck like everybody else. God knows, we wouldn't want to deprive anyone of their Christmas duck !

Answer 4

No one thing will have a big impact apart from completely ceasing greenhouse emissions. But it is definitely worth while to plant trees. Although they do release some C02 back into the atmosphere when they die alot of carbon is stored in the soil. And besides storing CO2, trees have many positive contributions to the environment.

Answer 5

Assuming CO2 is the problem, which the data certainly doesn't prove.. planting trees is not a solution. Trees only store CO2, they eventually return all of it to the system. In fact rotting vegetation is by far the largest contributer of CO2 to the system.

That being said, trees have other very important roles. So more of them is always a good thing..

Answer 6

I have not made a big deal of this. I was an environmental engineer of the EPA and I have spent a lot of time working on the problem of global warming since I retired. You can quit working, but you can't quit thinking I guess.
Each year the Government is required to make a report to the United Nations on the emissions of greenhouse gases and the people who work on it do a pretty good job of covering all the bases. But, and its a big one, they make it clear that water is the dominate greenhouse gas.
We have know that H2O was dominate in global warming for, well forever. If you have the new CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics they show how much and of what wave-length of sun light the different compounds take out of what is coming in and exiting our atmosphere. Carbon dioxide takes energy at lower wavelengths, and it releases the same wavelengths or some lower fraction there of based upon quantum orbit theory. Water does the same thing, but water is like mother-ship while CO2 are like the drones.
Water has been ignored because it was believed that the level of water in the atmosphere is constant. It is not. The amount present at higher levels in the atmosphere is rising and this is far mor dangerous then CO2.
To give you some relation between the amount of CO2 and H2O in the air, image that you have a cubic meter of air at 1 atmosphere at sea level and about 80 degrees F and that the relative humidity is a relativly low 50%. So in the m^3 you will have 2.55 lbs of air, (0.011 * 2.55) = 0.0281 lbs water with a volume of 0.620 ft^3 or 17.6 L of water vapor. So if the average [CO2] in 2004 was 377 ppm we will adjust it to, say 385 today. Thus 385 ppm of 1000 - 17.6 L is the volume of CO2 that you would have. That is (982.4)*0.000385 = 0.378 L CO2.
So you have 17.6 L of a much worse gas vs 0.378 L (a coke can holds 0.355 L so a cylinder the height and diameter of a coke can is greater in volume then the CO2 in the air. Which, by the way would almost double in the m^3 if I opened a can of coke.
Most of the CO2 we release is easily controlled. Every where you see a smokestack you see a source of CO2 or worse pollutants. Please pardon my english, but the purpose for smokestacks is to spread your crap on to your neighbors!
If we used technology available today, at least I hope some one smarter then me has thought of it because I can design it right now, it is possible to take the stack emissions of all stack emissions of CO2 and use them for green purposes such as growing food. There may be no profit in the food, other then avoiding the fines for discharging, but the number of jobs and opportunities for growth is enormous.
The answer to your question is that you want a fast growing plant that can be used for other purposes, such as by farmers. Slow growing plants do not store or sequestor, very much CO2 because what they absorb in the day they release at night. Broad leaf trees may appear good but if they loss their leaves then you have a situation where about 1/2 of the carbon, as in composting goes of as CO2.
Also remember that fossil fuels and all of the alternative that we have are either hydrocarbons or come from hydrocarbons as in the case of electricity. Even when you burn ethanol, Pres. Bush's new baby,(no one has realized that everything he talked about in that speech was in the Popular Science Magazine that was on the newsrack at that time. Maybe it was Popular Mechanics, I don't see him as a science kind of guy.) You get two CO2s but six H2Os.
I hope I have helped.

Answer 7

Southern California got knocked off the power grid because of the electrical demand of the air conditioning load. They were producing over 500 megawatts/hour treating a symptom. 100% of it is avoidable, they just couldn't see it.

Functional landscaping and reflective or UV resistant coatings would eliminate can eliminate air conditioning with unrealized savings. Air conditioning is in fact refrigeration using ozone depleting halocarbons. The massive electrical waste produces toxic emissions as well as other GHG emissions. You would also eliminate the generated heat that is changing the world's weather.

Go to www.thermoguy.com/globalwarming-heatgain.html to see temperature beyond your visible spectrum. You project is very important because all buildings are being affected while the world reacts to symptoms.

Answer 8

Ooohhh... I had a great answer that fit your main question but not your explanation. Oh well, I'll give it anyway. I don't know about C02 emissions, but there are plants in Asia that are being used to fight desertification and soil depletion: Vetivert (or vetiver or vettiver) in India, and Seabuckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides L. also called sea buckthorn) in China.

Seabuckthorn is a nitrogen fixer (gets nitrogen from the air rather than the soil), it brings water up from its metres-deep roots, it grows in up to 1% saline soil, and it's an excellent windbreak.

It's being researched in several locations in Canada and the United States for its soil conditioning benefits, use as a windbreak around crops, to hold back desertification, and as a livestock grazing feed.

Answer 9

If your college seeks lower greenhouse admission (H20, CH4, and CO2) have the engineering department switch over to nuclear power -- you will only get H20. As for plants, industrial hemp (no not the stuff you smoke) but the stuff you can made fibre, paper, and oil (look up Diesel and Germany).

If you live in a cold area, have them build pits to collect snow from streets (about 4 m below grade and a 13m cube ought to do --- use cube as heat sink/source for HVAC in buildings.

Plant grass in all parking lots to absorb solar heat away from buildings.

Answer 10

Trees are actually pretty poor at absorbing C02 because they grow so slow. An acre of corn will absorb more C02 in a year than an acre of rainforest but only if you're planting the corn no-till, if you ever till it the C02 gets released again.