UKH

The BMC are offering to plant 1 m2 of sphagnum moss for £25.

https://shop.thebmc.co.uk/product/1-sqm-sphagnum/

does anyboy have a handle on the asscoiated likely carbon capture?

I try to 'off set' my hill activities by donating to charities that plant trees etc in the uplands and

wonder how the moss compares?

https://www.climatexchange.org.uk/media/1481/carbon_savings_from_peat_resto...

From this document you get CO2 savings per ha depending on current state.

Looks like 200-500 g /year per m2.

Seems a pretty expensive way to offset. 10k miles driving (~3.5T CO2) would cost £350M a year this way. Also would need a huge area.

I'm struggling to compute that...

Assuming 125g (0.125kg)/km CO2 for a new, 2018, average EU petrol car:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200317-climate-change-cut-carbon-emiss...

we get 0.125 * 10000kg for 10000km = 1250kg = 1.25T

Assuming the top end 500g/m2 for your moss, that will need 1250/0.5 = 2500 m2 of moss to offset

At £25 per m2, we get £62500

Oh, you said 10k miles; that's still only 2T, 4000m2 and £100000

Still expensive, but not £350M...

thanks ( & Phillip) - still a nice thing to do even if not mega efficient.

I think it's more of a donation thing than a viable carbon offset mechanism...

And further benefits in terms of biodiversity, flood mitigation or warm fuzzy feeling that can be priced into that?

oh indeed - and perhaps wipe out the memories of DofE training on Kinder 30 years ago.

the horror, the horror, the sucking, black, horror.

Do it in combination with re-wetting work. Re wetting stops peat erosion which releases masses of CO2 and as such is way more significant effect on our carbon budget than moss planting alone. Plus it improves biodiversity. 

Lots of charities work on that... just watched one in episode 3 in the excellent recent series "The Lakes", hosted by Simon Reeve.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m0011p16/the-lakes-with-simon-reeve

As Offwidth says, rewetting plus Sphagnum planting (for degraded sites like the N England blanket bogs) is the way to go. There are potentially huge carbon savings to be made from proper rewetting and restoration. This report has some nice, reader-friendly info:

https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/files/38669482/NbS_Report_Final_Design...

I've never seen a direct comparison of carbon capture but as others have mentioned there are multiple benefits to planting sphagnum...biodiversity, rewetting the moors, reducing erosion, flood management, new peat generation, reduced fire risk... As the sphagnum takes carbon out of the atmosphere, lower down it begins to decompose and form peat where the carbon is locked in, stabilising the peat and keeping this carbon locked in is essential

Also it's great for wiping your arse.

Cheers Mike that is a fabulously comprehensive report that I'd not seen before.

As the report says an estimated 23 million tons of CO2e is generated annually from degrading peat bogs due to erosion and forced drainage. That's 5% of UK emissions. Re-wetting is both vital to get to net zero and the perfect way to carbon offset for someone environmentally minded (especially with all the other biodiversity benefits). Restoring salt marsh likely almost as good for the same reasons (and another great carbon offset investment) and the importance of heathland is often understated.

My mistake, I meant K and typed M. £350K not £350M. Which is still a lot of money.

I used 3.5T / 10k miles and 250g/m2/year.

It is still a huge amount to pay when carbon offset is usually of the order of £10/T not £100k/T

Aside from the whole greenwashing problem with offsetting, those of us who spend money to rejuvenate nature would want that money spent as efficiently as possible on the end goal. Spagnum moss plugs are places 1 m apart, so you're paying £25 for one plug and the 30 seconds to place it in the ground. A large % of than money is probably not going on achieving the end goal.

You're looking at one aspect and missing the big picture. The re-wetting involved in these projects is the biggest carbon offset gain as it helps cut the often horrendous peat loss. Spagnum and other planting also helps quickly stabilse the work done, which also helps water retention (cutting flood risks), and improves bio-diversity. Read Mike's linked report for a good summary.

I know of somebody currently doing a PHD, not directly about spaghnum moss, but related, and he'll talk about it for ages, how good it is ecologically and carbon related.

It's a very good thing, in terms of water quality, upland management, flood reduction, and co2 retention as well.

Exactly.

I'm sure it's a lovely practical solution to a range of problems in peatbogs and climate but wtf are we being asked to fund it? The oil companies make the profit from the carbon economy and the companies we work for make the profit from our labours and our commutes. And yet again the responsibility for cleaning up their mess falls on us.

It's time we rose up against this government who represent only those who pay them and line their pockets after they leave office. Unfortunately if we don't resist and kill-the-bill all protest will be banned. It will be a jailable offence to stand together in parliament square (or anywhere else for that mater) And then who will stand against corruption, incompetence, pollution, venality, and the rest.

When I choose to travel to climb/walk there is an inevitable environmental impact.

As I dont want to stop doing these things, i try to mitigate my impact - so alternative travel and a bit of low key offsetting that directly targets the areas i enjoy - I cant see that as a massive negative, and will only add to any action the Govt take.

Thank Mike, excellent resource.

Be my guest but I worry now that. We will lose our right to shine a light on how responsibility less with those in power (elected and otherwise). You 25 quid for a  m2 of moss would sit better alongside 50M quid paid for by government or from the profits of the oil giants. But Boris wants to jail those who would call for it by sitting in the road or chaining themselves together or just refusing to move on to a police officer. 51 weeks in jail. Looks a lot like a police state. Even this post would be enough to make me arrestable 

Seems to me that involving you in such accounting is a tool to distract. 

I think it's not a tool to distract, because that implies there is some kind of cunning plan behind it all, when in reality society is 'something of a managed clusterf*ck'.

You're 100% correct about how bad this proposed legislation about protesting is.  

Except for the last 20 years of collective effort to push the idea of personal carbon footprint is introduced from the establishment. Can we really believe that government and directors and other worthies didn't consciously decide that those who were aware and likely to make a fuss could be silenced if they had a pcf to deal with in a society that doesn't support dealing with the pcf. It worked for a while but now we have realized that government has the levers that make meaningful changes and have had them for decades. They refuse because they are beholden to the oil giants by bribery and pension fund dominance. Now we have their measure. Now they decide to criminalize dissent. 

Now we must act to protect our right to object.

I think that's how voting and taxation work

They are beholden to the oil giants and fossil fuel industries, but with the idea of a personal carbon footprint being used a distraction technique, I generally think that if there's a more than one reason for something to exist (as an approach, a concept, or a system), that coming down on one perspective may be misplaced when other possible reasons for it's existence exist as well.

Whether it's a cunning ploy to distract us or not, something needs to be done and soon about the 100 fossil fuel related companies which are behind circa 75% of our global carbon dioxide emissions...

Edit: Towards getting people on board, I find that talking about things unproven and unprovable, like the establishment seeking to distract people, can cause people to switch off or doubt the broader message, compared to talking about things more concrete, like the reasons why action is important, and precisely what tangible (best word I can think of, but it's not great) obstacles exist, like in this instance the fossil fuel companies and our reliance upon fossil fuel, and their financial links to politics.

Essentially we're in strong agreement about the need for action, and what most of the obstacles are.

I think you might want this thread...

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/politics/one_king_to_rule_them_all-741705

https://www.moorsforthefuture.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/94236/MFFP...

This report on the cost effectiveness may be of interest. MftF reckon up to £10/m2, depending on the method of application. So I'm not sure where the other £15 is going.

However if I've read it right they also think that 1cm2 is 1% of 1m2, so maybe their maths needs some work 

GTE

Could that depend on your 'if'?

It could well do... Maybe I need to read the full report rather than the summary, but it seems to me that the extract below directly equates 1cm2 with 1%

I'd be delighted to be wrong 

GTE

"Of the four forms of Sphagnum, clumps and plugs were the most successful, in terms of mean percentage cover. In terms of cost (production and application) per quadrat, plugs were the most expensive (£10.44 / m2), followed by clumps (£3.15 / m2) and then beads and gel (£1.04 / m2). In order to take both measures of success (i.e. Sphagnum cover and cost) into account, the cost per 1% (1 cm2) cover of established Sphagnum has been calculated, providing a cost-benefit comparison across all propagule types. When both Sphagnum coverage and cost is taken into account, the most successful propagule type is clumps (£0.09 per 1 cm2 of established Sphagnum), followed by gel (£0.10 per 1 cm2 of established Sphagnum), plugs (£0.26 per 1 cm2 of established Sphagnum) and beads (£1.30 per 1 cm2 of established Sphagnum). It should also be noted that as percentage cover of Sphagnum continues to increase over time, the cost per 1% cover will decrease."

A few years agoI was doing some long term vegetation monitoring on a peak district moorland. I was unhappy (!) In the final year To find my quadrats were suddenly filled with sphagnum plugs. 

Worth mentioning revegetating the moors also helps improve water quality as it helps stop the peat washing out into reservoir catchments and turning the water brown

Water quality for what though? None of the brown colour ends up in the tap. When I see brown streams these days I'm just sad for the loss of peat.

The brown colour (dissolved organic carbon - DOC) has a big role in aquatic ecosystem functioning. Too much of it can completely change the aquatic foodweb, because it controls light penetration into the water, and is also a food source for some microbes. From a human prespective, DOC is expensive and sometimes difficult to remove during drinking water treatment, and when chlorinated leads to the formation of some nasty byproducts (trihalomethanes). Oh, and it also gets broken down and releases carbon dioxide. DOC is a natural component of streams that drain peatlands, but peatland drainage and degradation lead to elevated concentrations of it in streams = not good.

Thanks. Didn't know the second bit...should have realised toad knows his stuff.

£250k per hectare seems like an awful lot of money, is it all going to the establishment of moss?

That's the problem. STW has to treat water from ladybower etc to clear the humic acid ( which is the brown colour). It's quite a nasty and expensive process so they try to reduce colour at source by restoring peat in the catchment. They paid me for the best part of a decade to trudge up the Ashop twice a month and bring back thousands of identical bottles of brown water to stick in a photo spectrometer to see just how brown it was and whether gully blocking etc worked. As far as STW were concerned it was about cost saving. Biodiversity was a bonus

Keep going (I deserve it).