Earth's growing nitrogen threat

[tinrobot]

Last year, reactive nitrogen was identified as one of nine key global pollution threats and second worst in terms of having already exceeded a maximum “planetary boundary,” according to a study reported in the journal Nature.

“Nitrogen plays a tremendously important role in feeding the world’s peoples, so that’s a very positive benefit for humanity,” says James Galloway, a professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, and a leading nitrogen researcher. “The problem is how to maximize nitrogen’s benefits while diminishing its negatives – especially waste.”

Africa is one of a few places in the world where wider use of nitrogen fertilizers makes sense to help feed the population, many researchers agree. In the US, however, as much as 40 percent of reactive nitrogen is wasted – washing off farm fields into rivers, lakes, and the ocean, where oxygen-depleted “dead zones” are growing in number and size worldwide.

The situation is even worse in China, which uses about twice as much nitrogen fertilizer as the US to yield about the same amount of crops. As much as three-quarters of all nitrogen used to grow rice in China may be wasted, says Vaclav Smil, a nitrogen expert at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Living-Green/2010/0113/Earth-s-growing-nitrogen-threat

[Gregorian]

1. I've posted about the Bosch-Haber cycle before.

This is the "other global warming". Very little attention is being paid to this massive problem. At least in the media. It started back in the early part of the last century, when natural farming couldn't keep up with population. There was literally an official challenge to try and find a way to achieve the goal of feeding more people. And this is what it got us.

It's about population. All of these things that are troubling us. And it is for this reason that solutions are really nothing more than bandaids. That's not really true. Things like efficient homes and photovoltaics are true solutions. But they will not solve the true problem. Especially when that "problem" is growing faster than any engineering can possibly keep up with.

I think we're in trouble. The question is, what will the earth look like after the storm.


I should add that the Bosch-Haber cycle costs us 1% of our total energy consumption in this country.