Now Nitrogen, making up 78% of Earth’s atmosphere, and a requirement for many agricultural crops is given the label of “dangerous”. I’m guessing Oxygen and the “dangerous oxidation” it causes will be next.
First they came for the CFC’s, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a user of aerosol deodorant.
Then they came for the Carbon Dioxide, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a denier.
Then they came for the Nitrogen, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a farmer.
Then they came for the Oxygen–and there was no one left breathing to speak for me.
From the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) home of the Schellnhuber
Dangerous nitrogen pollution could be halved
Ambitious mitigation efforts, however, could decrease the pollution by 50 percent. The analysis is the very first to quantify this.
“Nitrogen is an irreplaceable nutrient and a true life-saver as it helps agriculture to feed a growing world population – but it is unfortunately also a dangerous pollutant,” says Benjamin Bodirsky, lead-author of the study. In the different forms it can take through chemical reactions, it massively contributes to respirable dust, leads to the formation of aggressive ground-level ozone, and destabilizes water ecosystems. Damages in Europe alone have been estimated at around 1-4 percent of economic output, worth billions of Euro. About half of these nitrogen pollution damages are from agriculture. This is why the scientists ran extensive computer simulations to explore the effects of different mitigation measures.
Both farmers and consumers would have to participate in mitigation
“It became clear that without mitigation the global situation may markedly deteriorate as the global food demand grows,” says Bodirsky, who is also affiliated to the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Colombia (CIAT). “A package of mitigation actions can reverse this trend, yet the risk remains that nitrogen pollution still exceeds safe environmental thresholds.”
Only combined mitigation efforts both in food production and consumption could substantially reduce the risks, the study shows. Currently, every second ton of nitrogen put on the fields is not taken up by the crops but blown away by the wind, washed out by rain or decomposed by microorganisms. To reduce losses and prevent pollution, farmers can more carefully target fertilizer application to plants’ needs, using soil measurements. Moreover, they should aim at efficiently recycling animal dung to fertilize the plants. “Mitigation costs are currently many times lower than damage costs,” says co-author Alexander Popp.
“For consumers in developed countries, halving food waste, meat consumption and related feed use would not only benefit their health and their wallet,” Popp adds. “Both changes would also increase the overall resource efficiency of food production and reduce pollution.”
“Health effects of nitrogen pollution more important than climate effects”
“The nitrogen cycle is interwoven with the climate system in various ways,” Hermann Lotze-Campen points out, co-author of the study and co-chair of PIK’s research domain Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities. Nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, on the one hand is one of the major greenhouse gases. On the other hand, nitrogen containing aerosols scatter light and thereby cool the climate. And as fertilizing nutrient, nitrogen enhances the growth of forests which binds CO2. “Currently the health effects of nitrogen pollution are clearly more important, because the different climate effects largely cancel out,” says Lotze-Campen. “But this may change – hence limiting nitrogen would have the double benefit of helping our health today and avoiding climate risks in the future.”
Article: Bodirsky, B.L., Popp, A., Lotze-Campen, H., Dietrich, J.P., Rolinski, S., Weindl, I., Schmitz, C., Müller, C., Bonsch, M., Humpenöder, F., Biewald, A., Stevanovic, M. (2014): Reactive nitrogen requirements to feed the world in 2050 and potentials to mitigate nitrogen pollution. Nature Communications [DOI:10.1038/ncomms4858]
Weblink to Nature Communications where the article will be published: http://www.nature.com/naturecommunications
What is dangerous is “progressives” and “environmentalists”. Everything they propose to do results in less food, fewer people, economic harm. Make them prove their claims very specifically. Limits are fine where limits are needed but sweeping global or national regulation is harmful. Have them prove the damage in a specific area, regulations can be proposed for that area, and if they were not effective, the regulation should be removed. These sweeping generalities are likely to kill people and this seems to make them quite happy. I believe they are misanthropes killing people “for their own good”.
For any self-absorbed GHG band and equal Earth surface and adjacent air temperature, there is zero, 0, nix, zilch, nada, net IR flux from surface to atmosphere in that band.
Because Climate Alchemists imagine incorrectly that the surface Irradiance is the same as a black body in a vacuum in radiative equilibrium with a sink at absolute zero, they imagine that such GHGs as CO2, H2O and N2O absorb vast IR energy then thermalise it, hence the ‘back radiation’ fairy tail.
There is no such energy flow. It is the worst scientific cock-up in History. Papers such as this which assume this fantasy physics are worse than useless because there is (1) no experimental proof and (2) Nature has no right to publish such obvious scientific fiction. This is a circle jerk of a science.
There’s no question that these people would be much happier on the moon with no atmosphere to worry about. Would next year’s Global Change Research Program budget be enough to buy them all one-way tickets? http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/FY%202015%20Climate.pdf
I propose we ban “stupid”, all those in favor say “Aye”.
Dihydrogen monoxide? Pah, sounds harmless. Hydroxic acid is what you want. That’s the real deal, and oh boy, do we have loads! 🙂
Why don’t they tell what it is about. Could it be because it worked with carbon pollution.
In both cases it is in combination with oxygen, so the mitigation could be to remove the oxygen. It would also prevent carbondioxide to be produced. A simple and neat solution.
Hydroxic acid isn’t a problem, Hydronium Hydroxide on the other hand is really hazardous!
Brilliant poem, but like others have pointed, nitrogen is in many forms other than N2.
“Only combined mitigation efforts both in food production and consumption could substantially reduce the risks, the study shows.”
The stupid, it burns. Not as much as the desperate plea that we submit to the Science Overlords but it still burns.
Here is an easy BS detector test. Any claim that social behavior changes can change the physics is BS.
They are simply testing the waters for a successor to CO2.
To my knowledge PIK is funded by the german government…they need something new to scare the electorate.
They’re talking about Amine (NH3-) Nitrate (NO3-) salts, not Nitrogen gas (N2).
Since nitrogen fertilizers are a diverse set with only the Nitrogen part in common, it is reasonable to refer to them generally as Nitrogens.
Obviously.
Then perhaps someone can explain to me why they did not say that?
Yes, dihydrogen monoxide is one of the most dangerous chemical compounds, and is created by burning fossil fuels.
Elevated levels of dihydrogen monoxide is one of the primary causes of damaging floods. It also is a contributing factor to hurricanes, tornado formation, ice storms, snow storms, etc.
Inhalation of high concentrations of dihydrogen monoxide is a leading cause of death in children, and is a carrier for the spread of many diseases. Write your liberal congressman and demand that congress ban this dangerous substance.
http://dhmo.org/facts.html#DANGERS
Do you suppose it might help to stop fertilizing marginal lands which are best suited for grazing, in order to raise corn for ethanol production?
This is not a study of any kind. It is a proposal to socialist grant vampires around the world, saying “How about Nitrogen. The Carbon scam may be petering out, Ocean Acidification isn’t going anywhere, but Nitrogen can make the climate go hot or cold, nobody knows much about it so we can just make it up as we go, and we could starve millions of those evil humans to boot.”
When can “dangerous” stupidity be halved?
From the abstract:
They must be new to the game. Not going to scare many people with numbers like those. Gonna need a scarier model.
“Since nitrogen fertilizers are a diverse set with only the Nitrogen part in common, it is reasonable to refer to them generally as Nitrogens.
Obviously.”
Carbonaceous compounds are a diverse set with only the carbon part in common so it is reasonable to refer to e. g. Carbon dioxide (CO2), Benzene (C6H6), Sugar (C6H12O6) and Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN) as Carbons
No?
I have no problem with this research. Nutrient-laden runoff degrades surface water, we’ve known this for a hundred years. This is why Lake Erie used to be biologically dead. Since the Clean Water Act, point sources of nitrogen, phosphorus and other pollutants have been cleaned up substantially, and our waterways reflect this. I’m a Republican and support legislation to clean up our waterways.
Nitrogen pollution isn’t dangerous per se, but it leads to noxious conditions. Also, spreading manure onto fields opens up all sorts of other problems including pathogenic bacteria, odors etc.
Sorry, Anthony, this article is a “red herring” and shouldn’t be part of the climate discussion. Certain nitrogen compounds are implicated in trapping infrared radiation, but this article doesn’t discuss that. In fact, applying manure onto farmfields only makes it worse.
Luther Bl’t says:
May 13, 2014 at 12:54 pm
Yes, hydroxic acid is even scarier than dihydrogen monoxide! We’re all going to dissolve, like the Wicked Witch. We’re melting!
[Hydro-hydroxic acid actually. Mod]
Nitrogen “pollution” is also plant food, says James Hansen in his last publication with NASA:
“We suggest that the surge of fossil fuel use, mainly coal, since 2000 is a basic cause of the large increase of carbon uptake by the combined terrestrial and ocean carbon sinks. One mechanism by which fossil fuel emissions increase carbon uptake is by fertilizing the biosphere via provision of nutrients essential for tissue building, especially nitrogen, which plays a critical role in controlling net primary productivity and is limited in many ecosystems and field studies confirm a major role of nitrogen deposition, working in concert with CO2 fertilization, in causing a large increase in net primary productivity of temperate and boreal forests.”
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/1/011006
Referring to nitrogen compounds as “nitrogen” is akin to referring CO2 as “carbon pollution”. It is incorrect & misleading, but it serves the alarmists well. This article is yet another example of the abuse of science by alarmists.
“This is why the scientists ran extensive computer simulations to explore the effects of different mitigation measures…” When you have a answer/method that works with anything you run with it! I bet they are already counting the incoming grants.
Hmm. I think the article needs re-focussing. The issue isn’t nitrogen on fields, but nitrates that add nitrogen to the soil. Because of run off and the subsequent concentration of fertiliser in the sea, there are many cases of algae bloom and oxygen depleted areas in the sea. Gulf of Mexico is one area of many suffering.
So agricultural run off is the important issue I see. To call it too much nitrogen is getting things wrong, after all they are not spreading Nitrogen on the fields: its a gas after all!
I do however support “only fertilise what’s needed”. Same amount of food will be grown and our rivers and seas will benefit greatly.
Maybe the farming research places have discovered that adding an “Oh no, the climate” to a research paper title makes large doses of grant money available?!
Let’s just ban gas, any gas. Then we can all just drift off quietly to sleep and not have to listen to any more of this
Nitrogen comprises 75 wt. % of the atmosphere and CO2 only about 460 ppm. One would think an increase in N would dilute down the concentration of CO2 and the claimed associated greenhouse effect. Since plants produce oxygen from CO2 we should expect the oxygen concentration to increase with recent planetary greening. All said, we should be seeing a decrease in the concentration of trace gases such as argon, neon, krypton, xenon, etc.
Seems that the solution to pollution IS dilution.