The New Green Economy

With the recent flooding throughout the Americas these last few months, I thought to address a little known, but extremely important, forgotten grass: bamboo.

Bamboo is an arborescent (treelike) grass belonging to the family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae.  The family Poaceae, true grasses, is thought to comprise 20% of the known vegetation covering the Earth.[1] Grasses are extremely important to both the ecology at large, as well as to humans specifically.  Grasses provide us with a host of benefits, three of which are supplying staple food crops, conserving soil moisture, and preventing soil erosion.

Like common lawn grasses, bamboo spreads by roots called rhizomes and must be removed by digging up the roots themselves.  An entire grove of bamboo is usually just one plant, for the roots are all connected and grow from the mother clump.  Bamboo is classified as either a clumping bamboo or a running bamboo.

Clumping varieties grow slowly and spread through very short rhizomes that keep the bamboo stocks close to the mother clump.  These varieties are easy to contain and rarely get out of hand before the property owner notices.  Running varieties grow more rapidly and spread far and wide, growing very long rhizomes that can be unmanageable when left unattended for years on end.  Clumping and running bamboos can be herbaceous (foliage stocked) and deciduous (woody stocked), as well as tropical and temperate.

Unlike common lawn grasses,

The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) is offering renewable energy developers, homeowners, and small businesses an offer they just can’t refuse.  Through OPA’s Feed-in Tariff Program (FIT), citizens may now get paid to generate their own renewable energy and help reduce their impact on the environment.