In recent months, the frenzied worldwide campaign against carbon emissions into the atmosphere has not gone well for enthusiasts. Among other things, the Ukraine war has highlighted the fact that wind and solar generators cannot really function on their own to power a modern economy. That has left places like Germany and the UK that build the most to face soaring energy prices and reliance on natural gas from Russia for backup. Those countries and others are in the process of being forced to at least slow down the pace towards Net Zero in terms of carbon emissions.
But in the meantime, there’s another campaign for Net Zero that until recently has mostly just flown under the radar. It’s a campaign against nitrogen. Nitrogen is what makes up about 80% of the atmosphere, and you never even notice it there. It is also necessary for plant growth, but for that purpose needs to be combined with hydrogen. Farmers can provide their crops with the nitrogen they need through animal manure, which is an excellent source, or through commercial fertilizers, which are created by taking nitrogen from the air and combining it with hydrogen from the gas. nature. Really, who can resist this?
The answer is that the usual environmental advocates, in collaboration with the UN of course, have embarked on the fight against nitrogen. Or maybe it’s a war on all agriculture, with nitrogen just the pretext. You are the judge.
The war on nitrogen suddenly entered the international community’s consciousness around December of last year, when the country of Sri Lanka suddenly faced an unintended famine. How did that happen? This is a New York Times report from December 7, 2021, headline “Sri Lanka’s plunge into organic farming brings disaster.” It turns out that by “organic agriculture” they mean that synthetic nitrogen fertilizers are not allowed. Sri Lanka banned the import of these in April 2021. The ban is part of a commitment to the United Nations to adopt (or possibly return) “sustainable” agricultural practices:
“Sustainable food systems are part of Sri Lanka’s rich socio-cultural and economic heritage,” [President Gotabaya Rajapaksa] told a summit of the United Nations in September. “However, our recent past has seen the increased use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides leading to adverse health and environmental impacts.”
It took only about seven months for severe food shortages to occur:
[F]armers and agricultural experts to blame [ban on fertilizers] The policy of sharp reductions in crop production and rising prices are exacerbating the country’s growing economic situation and leading to concerns about food shortages.
Last month, there were many large protests, and On July 12 President Rajapaksa fled Nation.
And not just Sri Lanka. The Dutch farmers’ protests were also about nitrogen, rather than carbon. But in the Netherlands, the problem does not seem to be the use of chemical fertilizers. Instead, the Netherlands appears to be a hub for raising animals for meat, and worrying amounts of nitrogen are being released into the atmosphere from animal feces. The solution offered by the government is to force farmers to reduce their herds. Are from Financial Times, August 3:
Millions of cows, pigs and chickens helped make the Netherlands an agricultural power. But the animals that contribute up to 105 billion euros in annual exports to the farm also produce something less desirable: alarming levels of nitrogen emissions from their waste. When emissions reached the legal limit, the Dutch government had a drastic solution to its growing pollution problem. They want to cut livestock by a third, bribing farmers to shut down production as part of a plan to halve emissions by 2030.
Is it possible for nitrogen emissions (in the form of NO2) from livestock waste to reach sufficient concentrations in the atmosphere, even at local levels, to pose a danger to human health? Humans have kept these animals for millennia.
And it seems that other countries are not far behind the Netherlands. For example, there is Canada. Are from Financial Post Office, July 27:
Government [of Canada] is proposing to cut emissions from fertilizers by 30% by 2030 as part of a plan to reach net zero over the next three decades. But growers are saying that to get there, they may have to reduce grain production significantly at a time when the world is scrambling for more supplies.
And from Hot air, August 1:
There have been farmers’ protests taking place in several countries outside the Netherlands, although farmers there are currently attracting the most attention. Similar uprisings are taking place in Spain, Ireland and New Zealand.
Is any of this really driven by a genuine concern about the health effects of atmospheric NO2 or is something else going on? You may be interested in a British environmentalist interview conducted by George Monbiot 2nd August on Irish state-run television. A few excerpts:
“It’s the biggest cause of habitat destruction, the biggest cause of wildlife loss, the biggest cause of extinction, the biggest cause of land loss, a major source of freshwater. best. It’s one of the biggest causes of climate disruption, bigger than traffic. . . . We need to take drastic action in that area like any other to prevent the collapse of our life support systems. and that means, most of all, getting rid of livestock is actually shutting down livestock altogetherbecause that has a disproportionately large impact on the living planet, and we need to switch to other food sources from a much more efficient, much lower environmental impact plant-based diet. . “
Note that he said nothing about NO2 emissions there. He doesn’t think you can eat meat.
Also in case you were wondering, here it is US EPA chart atmospheric NO2 concentrations for the past 42 years since 1980:
Note that that graph does not show annual emissions, but concentrations in the atmosphere. The current concentration of NO2 is less than 50 parts Billiondown 64% from more than 100 ppb in 1980. We’re following the national standard of 100 ppb.
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