The green hill in the distance looks to be natural but then you think “hang on, this is Dallas. There aren’t any hills here … ”

The hill, in fact, masks what was once an illegal landfill filled with cast off debris. The garbage now lies beneath a thick clay cap to prevent the methane, a greenhouse gas on steroids, from seeping out. Natural grass has been planted on the top.

Nearby fish-filled ponds mark the gateway to a 6,000 acre ecosystem which is the largest urban hardwood forest in the United States. And it is all just minutes away from historically disadvantaged and mostly black neighborhoods on the south side of Dallas.

I had been meaning to visit the Trinity River Audubon Center, a partnership between the city of Dallas the National Audubon Society, since it opened in October of last year. I got a gap the other day and it was an eye-opening visit.

Basically, the city and the green group are transforming a wasteland into an urban oasis on the banks of the Trinity River which is a magnet for bird life and mammals such as beaver and white-tailed deer.

This is a “good news” green story that shines a spotlight on many different issues: the environmental costs of poverty (no illegal landfills in affluent white suburbs); the range of sources for the greenhouse gases linked to global warming (people think of cars and power plants, not garbage sites);and our ability to reverse environmental damage.

The center’s director Chris Culak showed me aerial photos which showed the gradual transformation as the garbage — which at one point had burnt off and on for several months — was buried, grass was planted and the center was built.

Among other things the center serves as an educational show piece complete with labs to provide inner city kids with a natural experience they wouldn’t otherwise get. This is important as environmentalism is sometimes seen as an “elitist” pursuit which doesn’t involve or engage poor and minority communities. (It brings to mind the green movement in South Africa, where I was based for many years. It was largely white and well-heeled and often seemed far removed from the country’s townships and squalid squatter camps).

In Phoenix, a similar project is under way near the downtown area, where a former dumping ground for industrial business is being transformed into a riverside park and nature center.

It all beats the hell out of a landfill or dump.

(Photo: Trinity River Audubon Center, courtesy of Audubon)

Farming often gets a bad wrap for causing global warming but at least two sheep in Norway are doing their bit to go green.

Grass has been growing on the backs of the sheep on the island Vega off Norway’s northwest coast — apparently from seeds that fell onto them during the night when they were sleeping in a shed under some stacks of hay.

“Their backs are green as lawns,” farmer Arvid Olsen (pictured left) told Ingvar Andersen, who works for the Norwegian regional newspaper Brønnøysunds Avis and who took these two photos.

The sheep can in theory nibble on each other if they are hungry. Among other joking suggestions were that the sheep were camouflaging themselves to hide from predators. Norway has both wolves and bears on the mainland. 

And these sheep won’t need to be sheared — instead Olsen will have to get out his lawnmower.

Farm animals are also big sources of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from their digestive tracks — in some countries such as New Zealand, sheep are among the biggest contributors to national emissions. 

So the tiny portable lawns mean that the sheep are doing at least a bit to offset climate change because plants soak up greenhouse gases.

Maybe all sheep should be sprinkled with seeds in spring? Or maybe white sheep are better after all — they help reflect sunlight back into space?

Could cow manure curb global warming?

A study by scientists in Texas reckons that cows, sheep, pigs, chickens and other farm animals excrete enough waste to generate electricity for millions of homes, helping reduce reliance on coal-fired power plants and so cut greenhouse gas emissions released by burning fossil fuels.

Left to decompose naturally, manure emits the powerful greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide. If trapped by a devoted workforce (people with an impaired sense of smell encouraged to apply) the gases could used to drive microturbines to generate electricity. That works by the manure being “anaerobically digested” — a process a bit like making compost — to release energy-rich biogas which would be burnt to drive the microturbines.

The calculations, the scientists say they are the first to outline a procedure for quantifying amounts of energy and greenhouse gases linked to national herds, suggest that farm animals in the United States alone could generate about 2.4 percent of U.S. electricity and avert about 3.9 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

Dung is widely burnt in the Third World as a fuel; why not exploit it elsewhere?

The study doesn’t look into the uncertainties about the economics of sucking up manure, transport, building specialised power plants, etc (with oil at almost $130 a barrel, what would you pay for a barrel of manure?) 

So, if you live in the countryside and your eco-minded neighbour tells you sometime in future: “We switched our electricity supplier from coal to get it from the local wind farm” you can go one better and say:

“See Daisy the cow over there in the field? We get ours from her”.

Is there a future for manure?