Wednesday
Aug032011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Is this what's next?
Aug 3, 2011 Greens Royal Society A little while ago it looked as if biodiversity was going to be the next big green issue. It didn't seem to gain much traction, but here's what looks like another attempt to test the political waters: the Royal Society's latest seminar.
What would a global policy to regulate human use of fixed nitrogen look like?
Reader Comments (46)
"...The dance went briskly onward,
Tingling madness seized them all;
As when howling, mighty tempests
On the arms of windmills fall..."
Given that every scientific advance is, to a greater or lesser extent, a leap into the unknown, there is an infinite array of subjects for eco-socialists to target so that they can a) keep feeling morally superior to the rest of us and, b) use our own money to tell us what to do.
Not sure that nitrogen fixing has quite the ring of splitting the atom about it, though.
I hear the sound of the barrel being scraped. Since I was a little lad humanity has been goin gto be wiped out by lots and lots of things:
Nuclear holocaust: - possible, but less likely than 40 years ago
Sea level rise - containable without much effort
Climate Refugees - a theoretical construct not (yet) observed in the wild
Catastrophic Climate Tipping Points - still seem to be pretty rare
Ocean becoming less strongly alkaline - hardly going to frighten the kiddiwinks
Polar Bears drowning - maybe not
Increased plant growth - nice
Fewer cold related deaths - generally to be favoured
More hurricanes - not what the actual data shows
....
So now we need Nitrogen .. another stable and pretty boring gas to frighten us witless.
It really isn't a very impressive list of annihilation factors.........
Wassamatter? Don't they believe in Darwin, evolution, survival of the fittest? If it's all just random mutation deciding species survival, easy come easy go.
Please tell me this is a spoof
could be, there's another hockey stick...
http://tinyurl.com/3mtx6m3
And if you look at the chart of potential effects of the N cascade, it's worse than we thought..
http://tinyurl.com/3nvo6xu
from The Nitrogen Cascade Galloway et al http://tinyurl.com/3v2olem
The conclusions from "Issues In Ecology Spring 1997 issue" summarise the platform....
"Human activities during the past century have
doubled the natural annual rate at which fixed nitrogen
enters the land-based nitrogen cycle, and the pace is likely
to accelerate. Serious environmental consequences are
already apparent. In the atmosphere, concentrations of
the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide and of the nitrogenprecursors
of smog and acid rain are increasing. Soils in
many regions are being acidified and stripped of nutrients
essential for continued fertility. The waters of streams
and lakes in these regions are also being acidified, and
excess nitrogen is being transported by rivers into estuaries
and coastal waters. It is quite likely that this unprecedented
nitrogen loading has already contributed to
long-term declines in coastal fisheries and accelerated
losses of plant and animal diversity in both aquatic and
land-based ecosystems. It is urgent that national and
international policies address the nitrogen issue, slow the
pace of this global change, and moderate its impacts. "
http://www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/wacademy/acad2000/pdf/issue1.pdf
whats next, Haber–Bosch tax?
pscientists and Politicians will be sniffing NOX all the way to the bank ;)
They're working their way through the periodic table. They've done oxygen (ozone). We're working through carbon pollution. Now nitrogen. Greenpeace had a Chlorine campaign a decade back. What's next? Hydrogen? Helium?
Oops - I forgot Phosphorus! The substitutes were arguably worse than the phosphorus in detergents, caused rivers in Switzerland to foam, killed Daphnia, etc.
damn n blast .... I meant N2O...
Sigh. Every year a new world-destroying chemical.
Time to reprint Hal Clement's old SF novel "The Nitrogen Fix"?
We stuill haven't even managed to ban Dihydrogen Monoxide!
And the RS says that!
First off we have to get that N2 out of the atmosphere.
Hey ZDB,
A new cause.......
Fixing Nitrogen, I didn't even know it was broken? :)
There has been a nitrogen focused equivalent of the IPCC floating around for years (I forget the name), paid for by our tax money I would imagine, and I suspect, producing reports like this -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/science-environment-13025304
They pop up periodically recycling the fertilizer overuse, acid rivers and lakes and similar articles of faith.
The atmosphere contains around 78% N, 20% O, 1% Ar, the reamining 1% comprises H20, Co2, CH4, O3, various chlorflourocarbons in ever decresing volumes. Co2 comprises around 4/100ths of 1%, of which humans account for about 4% of that amount! Looking at the amount of N there is, if N was so bad should they not have mentioned this a little earlier in the day?
And as for that despicable di-hydrogen monoxide stuff, I hear that if you breath enough of it in, it will kill you in minutes!!! It's terrible stuff, water companies add it to our reservoirs, the nuclear industry uses huge quantities of it, as do most power companies, they put it in our food, our drinks, feed it to animals & babies, & what does the Guvment do, SFA!!!!!!! It's appalling! I say ban it now!!!!!
Is it me, but shouldn't that RS statement read "There may come a time when it will be necessary......." not the other way round? Sounds like a regulations is being prepared all ready to me!
Regulating the fixation of nitrogen for human use?
That'll mean legume control.
There is a silver lining of course - tofu rationing.
The old adage about where there's muck, there's brass can be modified for the modern academic world into where there's global scaremongering, there's lots of grants. Or more snappily, 'where there's scare-trash, there's research-cash'
Don't be silly, Alan. If there is a chemical process in which "nitrogen", the most abundant gas in our atmosphere, is turned into a polluting threat by the practices we do everyday in agriculture and in our industry, we should not look into it?
Why?
Don't let global warming shenanigans take hold of your brains, people. We do control things like heavy pollutants, and I would say that we are all grateful for that. It did diminish the pollution and increased our health by a *lot*. So if there are dangerous practices which are evidently destroying our ecossystems, why shouldn't we discuss them?
To caricature all this into "OMG THEY ARE BANNING THE MOST ABUNDANT GAS IN THE ATMOSPHERE THEY ARE F NUTS!" is just being silly. Read the arguments, look into the science. If you don't agree with the science, please investigate. Research. And if there is indeed a danger here, are the troubles hard to overcome? Are they easy? I know nitrogen is commonly used in agriculture, so I reckon it wouldn't be an easy process, but I could well be mistaken.
Unless there are people talking about these issues, these questions are not answered. So I'd propose that you took your silly indignations of your heads, and start participating in that discussions as well. And if you think you shouldn't take the trouble of doing that, I'm sure that a lot of agriculture people will be interested and be sufficiently skeptical of the claims to be able to porsue investigations on the subject at hand.
Do these people hate life so much...
It might be what's coming next - after all, this is (again) about control, and 'good Nature' v evil humans. shee here, my bold:
"The natural global cycling of nitrogen through terrestrial and marine ecosystems with important transfers to and from the atmosphere is vital for the Earth’s life support systems. Over the last century human activities have taken control of the source terms in the nitrogen cycle, so that two thirds of the fixed nitrogen circulating globally results directly from human activity through combustion and industrial nitrogen fixation."
So obviously, human activities must be controlled, by these 'scientists' and their political friends.
As in all totalitarian systems - oddly enough usually built on some spurious claims to 'science' - it is about controlling the masses by the few 'enlightened' ones.
Behind all this hides the usual Malthus/Ehrlich anthropophobia, and the wish to reduce the world population to the few millions these people think earth can bear.
Steve Jones would say that opponents to this new scare are flat earthers ...
GENERAL REQUEST!!
I'm looking for scientific evidence PRO manmade warming.
OK ... you can stop laughing, but seriously I'm struggling to find much beyond the bland ones I listed on A href="http://scottishsceptic.wordpress.com/a-little-list/">a little list.
In particular, I can't think of a single bit of evidence for the massive positive feedbacks.
Any help (warmist or sceptic) would be appreciated! (add comments to the site -- it may take a time but I've yet to reject anything but overt spam)
good day
your Royals Society, their souping up a legacy from an australian called Theo Murphy:
Sir Nurse might intent good things with it , but , as they say , it is better to trust your brother AND have a hockey bat behind the door: A English FOIA request might learn us what the conditions are on this dotation ?
The next eco-scare?
Eco scares are really like bush fires: you can set a lot of fires all the time, but only a few will really take hold. There are a few key conditions:
1. Ignition: An initial trigger - often quite scientific
2. Fuel: that there is sufficient concern - that the subject resonates with the public. I.e. Not "save the cold slimy fish species we eat" but "save the "nice cuddly polar bear".
3. Oxygen ... the scare must attract publicity.
4. Arsonists: aka the will to fan the flames: people must be able to make money out of a scare to really fan the flames. Simple "concern" is never enough to keep it going. But shear financial greed will bridge any fire break.
4. Environment (wind, rain, humidity): to really fan the flames, the environment must be right:
a) the concern & action must extend "beyond the horizon" so that concern today doesn't have an immediate affect on pockets.
b) It must tap into people's guilt. Guilt about eating too much, about consuming too much, about being rich when lots of the world is poor, about being responsible for "poor" creatures dying. About using the car and being responsible for polution.
c) Scientifically unverifiable ... you can't have something that can be disproved by a bit of simple science. It can't be testable ... it's got to be something on which testing is either impractical (the globe) or unethical (people's health)
d) A straight forward message: you can't say: recycling is good but only if you recycle plastics because there's no benefit recycling glass and paper because there's less energy/pollution just using fresh material. It's got to be simple: "ALL RECYCLING GOOD", "ALL FOSSIL FUEL USE BAD", "ALL MEAT EATING BAD", etc.
Google 'manmade fixed nitrogen' & guess which university comes up with various dire warnings - yes UEA! Obviously want to find the next funding for wasteful research.
For information NOX legislation from the EU has been around for years with The Large Combustion Plant Directive (over 50MW) which limits NOX emissions, cars have exhaust gas recirculation to reduce thermal NOX emissions, for large ( & small) industrial combustion plant almost all manufacturers make low NOX burners.
What more do they expect us to do?
Luis Dias @11:39 AM, you are of course right on one level - no one is suggesting that N2 itself is dangerous. And it could in principle be the case that an increase in the amount of 'fixed' nitrogen in the environment represents a problem. Undoubtedly, the Haber-Bosch process means that human activity has created a lot of additional fixed nitrogen. As you point out, additional mercury, or carbon particulates, or whatever, in the environment are not so good, and attempts to limit emissions of such things are good. But it does look as though a certain section of the environmental lobby is over-eager to take up some of these scares. Think of ocean acidification.
The price of AN (ammonium nitrate) that I am currently buying is just under £300 per ton, urea at 46% N is about £330, a better buy but not suitable for all jobs. These prices are considerably higher than 4/5 years ago and means that what is used is used very carefully to optimise its effect.
Much work is going on with clovers etc to improve their ability to fix their own nitrogen from the air, transfering this ability to the staple crops like wheat/barley would probably require moving some genes about, so the anti GM lobby won't approve of that very practicle objective.
Much is also made of the N pollution in rivers, however I recall an experiment that SAC did years ago when they measured the run offs from fields threated conventually and organically. It was found at the time that when the organic was ploughed a considerable N spike was created, more so than with the conventional.
I am completely sick of all these namby pandy half hearted actions.
Let's BAN ALL CHEMICALS IMMEDIATELY.
We all know that chemicals are un-natural and deadly poisonious.
Ban them ALL - NOW, do you hear me!
Now to fix the world's financial problems.
Then it's off to bed for a good quiet, peaceful, well deserved sleep.
(I do like doing good before bedtime).
Oh I nearly forgot - BAN the Royal Sociery as well.
Good night.
The 'Stockholm List' of things to worry about has nine items:
* Climate change
* Ocean acidification
* Stratospheric ozone depletion
* Interference with the global phosphorus and nitrogen cycles
* Rate of biodiversity loss
* Global freshwater use
* Land-system change
* Aerosol loading
* Chemical Pollution
Does this represent a new strategy of defence in depth by the Greenies? All the way down to 'Plan I'? (We are all used to the "Even if CO2 doesn't cause catastrophic warming it acidifies the oceans" ploy).
Or can we hope to see them bickering over priorities and who gets the funding?
http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/main.html
But it does look as though a certain section of the environmental lobby is over-eager to take up some of these scares.
So I advise for people to stop with these ridiculous caricatures and silly jokes and start discussing these things like adults. Because if you don't, then you have what is called a "self-fulfilling prophecy", that is, if you continue this naive jesting of environmentalists are totalitarians and all they want is control so we wil just ignore them, you will end up with the talks being owned by those you claim as extremists.
Why? Because the "sane" ones ignored the talking in the first place ridiculing it as some "plot" to take over the world. That is just stupid. Stop listing all the things that the greens did wrong and you start doing your own talking about this issue. Investigate. Let's see if it is a good thing or not. Suspend ridicule and open a new research program on these issues. I happen to think that if this is in fact a danger to the ecossystem, it should be researched, and the last thing I want is for this kind of research and "discussions" be polarized between the raving lunatic speeches by some green extremists and the ridicule of jesters who will always pretend that the world is always "good". This won't get us nowhere.
Better to fill this conversation with the full spectrum of people, and then you'll end up with fairer conclusions.
Luis,
The target of much of this environmental raving is inevitably 'industrial' farming. Nitrates are a regular target. And 'prairie style' cereal farming is a favourite whipping boy. However, it ain't necessarily so. If I grow a hectare of wheat and put on the DEFRA fertiliser handbook approved amount of nitrogen (as nitrate), something in the order of 200kg, all being well I'll get a crop of around 10 tonnes back with an average N content of about 2.2%. That's 220kg of nitrogen OUT for 200kg IN. I'm not even counting the N in the straw or roots here, just the grain.
So how does this contribute to eutrophication/environmentalist gripe-du-jours then?
Of course, environmentalists advocate the use of organic manures as the N source for 'organic' produce, but these, unlike modern fertilisers, cannot be applied to a growing crop, simply because they will smother it. They are therefore applied to bare ground and exposed to winter rains before the crop canopy develops. The highly soluble nitrates thus leach out and pollute waterways.
And then they will blame *their* pollution on 'industrial' farming.
Organic food - expensive, substandard and environmentally damaging.
In the quotation above:
What would a global policy to regulate human use of fixed nitrogen look like?
the intent is clearly not scientific but political. If you have a global policy you need a global government to run it.
So, here we go again, toward a new world order controlled by Zed and her friends.
I agree, fixed nitrogen is very hazardous to human health. DOWN WITH N3 TRANSPORTATION! It's just too dangerous!
And then they will blame *their* pollution on 'industrial' farming.
Organic food - expensive, substandard and environmentally damaging.
Ok then. All we need is a ton of papers claiming precisely that.
Just a little detail on the N3 comment from Jeremy - N3 is what makes air bags inflate. It is ok though, because only organic azides are used in practice. (As approved by the 10:10 science committee).
There was a report out earlier this year, from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, which warned about "nitrogen pollution":
http://www.ceh.ac.uk/news/press/european-nitrogen-assessment-pressrelease.asp
Biodiversity gets a mention, as does climate change:
"The ENA [European Nitrogen Assessment] is the first time that the multiple threats of nitrogen pollution, including contributions to climate change and biodiversity loss, have been valued in economic terms at a continental scale."
Prof. Bob Watson welcomes the report:
"The assessment emphasizes how nitrogen links the different environmental issues that we have come to know so well: climate, biodiversity, air, water, and soil pollution. It develops the vision for a more holistic approach, which is vital if we are to make progress in tackling these issues."
"The lead editor of the ENA, Dr Mark Sutton from the UK’s Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, said, 'Nearly half the world’s population depends on synthetic, nitrogen-based fertilizer for food but measures are needed to reduce the impacts of nitrogen pollution. Solutions include more efficient use of fertilizers and manures, and people choosing to eat less meat. We have the know-how to reduce nitrogen pollution, but what we need now is to apply these solutions throughout Europe in an integrated way.'"
"To accompany the ENA launch a commentary by Dr Mark Sutton will be published in Nature on April 11 outlining why curbing nitrogen emissions is a central environmental challenge for the twenty-first century."
Pollution... check. Climate change... check. Biodiversity loss... check. Eat less meat... check. Published in Nature... check. Curbing emissions... check. Central environmental challenge... check.
Full house yet?
Actually this might just be part of the Biodiversity scare. Some quotes below from a 2005 article from Nature about Anthropogenic Nitrogen
" along with the release of other reactive forms of nitrogen from the burning of fossil fuels"
Fossil Fuels still to blame...phew, what a stroke of luck, we do not have to admit that we were wrong
"This is the third major threat to our planet after biodiversity loss and climate change,"
Presumably this can now be regarded as THE major threat now that the CO2 scare is tumbling down, and nitrogen it is linked to biodiversity issues.
"Excess nitrogen is known to have a variety of ill effects on plant life"
Nitrogen unfortunately has the same problem as CO2, it promotes growth in plants....so
"biodiversity hotspots may also be threatened"
because some plants respond to nitrogen more than others...
Finally although not mentioned as a benefit, like CO2 Anthropogenic Nitrogen generation can be easily measured and blame apportioned by the watermelons.
Link to PDF
http://www.blc.arizona.edu/courses/bioc462b/grimes/nitrogen06/papers/nitrogen_reduction.pdf
I forgot to mention, the Nature article gets full marks for including a hockeystick graph
I understand that there are now more scientists alive than are dead. It is therefore necessary to find them all something to do. In the days of conscription after the Korean war, one ploy to keep everyone employed was to whitewash coal. Perhaps discussing global government is the scientific equivalent to that military solution? The squaddies saw it for what it was: lets hope scientists have the sense to see it also.
Nitrogen based fertilisers are responsible in large part for the enormous increase in cereal yields that occured over the last 150 years.
Someone mentioned chlorine, which was demonised by the greenies a decade or so ago and resulted in the discontinuing of water treatment in parts of South America, leading to a cholera epidemic that killed a few hundred people.
Clearly the Royal Society has fallen into the hands of the enemies of humanity!
http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2008/may/New+findings+on+ocean+nitrogen
More grant money please.
Luis,
Try these:
http://www.biology.ed.ac.uk/research/institutes/plant/PDF/2004/Trewavas-2004-757.pdf
http://www.biology.ed.ac.uk/research/institutes/plant/PDF/2001/Trewavas-2001-409.pdf
Plenty of references in those two if you'd like to read further.
@ Luis Dias
As a Chartered Engineer who has worked on structural & civil engineering projects over many years, & currently running my own practice, I am well aware of the arguments & concerns of Nitrogen fixation, in particular surface water run-off from agricultural area into streams & river systems, which is effectively being talked about here. Under certain conditions, significant contamination can occur, but rarely does. Having worked for 4 years in the landfill management sector in the 1990s I can assure you this is nothing new. All UK landfill sites had to be registered & have a monitoring plan, farms ditto with slurry storage facilities, hence regular monitoring by local authorities/private contractors under legal obligations in conjunction with the Environment Agency. This is nothing more than picking another disaster in the wings as the previous one is shown to be false. Name me one armageddon disaster that actually happened & we're still here!
@ Aynsley Kellow
"They're working their way through the periodic table. They've done oxygen (ozone). We're working through carbon pollution. Now nitrogen. Greenpeace had a Chlorine campaign a decade back. What's next? Hydrogen? Helium?"
Look on the bright side. The alarmists might encounter some difficulty in dreaming up scare stories involving the noble gases, or inert gases as they used to be called!
Roy
Most of England is in what DEFRA terms a 'Nitrate Vulnerable Zone', this already imposes legal limits on the amount and the timings of artificial nitrogen fertilizer and manure:
http://www.netregs.gov.uk/netregs/businesses/agriculture/61885.aspx
Unfortunately, the Europeans consider that the societal and environmental damage caused by nitrogen loss exceeds 'the direct economic benefits of N in agriculture'
'The European Nitrogen Assessment. sources, effects and policy perpectives' (2011)
It can be downloaded from
http://www.nine-esf.org/ENA-Book