Parking lots outnumber drivers 3 to 1
Posted under Global Warming Awareness
Well, at least in Indiana’s Tippiecanoe County … parking lots outnumber people nearly three to one. In fact, for its 155,000 residents - this little county in the Midwest has 355,000 parking lots.
So, what is this post doing in a global warming awareness blog? Simple - parking lots aren’t as innocent as they seem. In fact, once you read below, you will find out just how much of a havoc these things can cause to our environment.
The following are 3 very important reasons why parking lots should not be taken for granted in the fight against global warming:
Pollution
Parking lots accumulate tons of pollutants like:
- oil
- grease
- heavy metals
- sediment
What makes it worse is that the concrete or asphalt layers of the parking lots make sure these pollutants are not absorbed by their non-porous surfaces. The rains will come and wash all these pollutants into the sewage - which find its way into the water systems like our lakes, rivers and oceans.
Flooding/Erosion
Because of its inabsorbent nature, parking lots prevent rain from soaking into the ground. To top it off, trees are often cleared to make way for these concrete structures. Thus, parking lots deliver a very potent one-two punch into any area’s food prevention system.
Heat
Paved surfaces also tend to absorb more solar radiation than its surroundings, thus raising temperatures on parking lots by as much as 2-3 degrees Celsius. How’s that for warming the globe?
Solution
The solution lies in having shared parking lots so that businesses, shopping malls, churches and your local cineplex do not need to make their own parking spaces. That sound’s like a nice petition point for your local government don’t you think?
Source: http://www.livescience.com/environment/070917_parking_lots.html
ChrissyJo on 20 Sep 2007 at 2:33 pm #
I read an article that 25% of global warming is caused from livestock flatulence… does this have any merit? That seems like a ridiculous claim to me but I’m no expert.
Peter Porker on 21 Sep 2007 at 2:23 am #
That report is actually based on a recent UN survey about bovine and porcine emissions (both from belching and from flatulence), plus the fertilizers needed to raise their feeds, and (on top of those) deforestation due to ranching are causing more global warming than all automobiles combined.
The figure is not really accurate methinks but, yes it seems that livestock flatulence is causing more harm than we initially thought - I will be blogging about that very soon, so please stay tuned.
Global Warming Awareness Blog » The Fart Side of Global Warming on 21 Sep 2007 at 1:14 pm #
[...] commented about livestock flatulence here and I was surprised to see that some people are actually aware just how destructive farts and [...]
Ronald Phill on 24 Jul 2008 at 3:33 pm #
It’s interesting that this article makes the case that parking lots contribute to the problem of stored heat (to summarize), but yet when it’s brought up that city based temp guages (used to track global temp trends) could be recording these increases and interpreted incorrectly, the fact is sniffed off and waved away…