14 ms·
Nitrous Oxide – A forgotten greenhouse gas
- dazag 5y agoThat's actually pretty interesting. That's been used in almost every agricultural land... Regenerative agriculture may save us from mayhem. We're heading towards extinction if we don't adapt
- esarbe 5y agoI agree. Although I'd put it like this: We're racing towards extinction and almost everyone tries to put the pedal to the metal because it benefits them just enough in the short run. Classic tragedy of the commons!
- charbonneau 5y agoNot me! I drive a Tesla.
- fogihujy 5y agoUnless you find food made without fertilizer that result in NOX emissions then the Tesla won't help with this particular problem. Just like going from combustion engines to electric vehicles will require major infrastructure changes, as will going from modern industrial farming practices to climate neutral ones require large changes in the way we produce, consume and think about food. You're not just going to be able to tell farmers to stop using fertilizers without a viable alternative.
- mellavora 5y agoand I'm sure you also charge that Tesla using only 100% carbon-neutral sources.
- dTal 5y agoYour case would be rather stronger if you didn't drive at all. And ate only vegetables from local fields farmed organically. And never took hot showers. And powered all of your electronics exclusively through wind and solar. And never connected to any servers or over network links that were not sustainably powered. You seem to be radically underestimating the scale of the problem. Being fortunate enough to be in the set rich enough to afford a luxury electric car absolves you from nothing.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y agoHow did you produce your wealth that let you buy your Tesla? Accounting for that, is your ecological footprint still smaller than that of a working class person driving a 1995 Honda Civic?
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoI'm going to assume that was supposed to be sarcasm and it is a) going over people's head and b) being willfully misinterpreted because it hits too close to home.
- charbonneau 5y agoI thought it's too obvious for a /s. Oh well
- esarbe 5y agoNever underestimate people's vanity.
- nahuel0x 5y agoAnd if humans doesn't go extinct, the loss of biodiversity created after eons of evolution is a tragedy who put our species to shame. We need to stop worrying only about humanity.
- prennert 5y agoI wonder if the loss of biodiversity during the anthropocene will lead to a post-anthropocenic explosion once humans (which might be the biggest evolutionary constraint at the moment) are gone. If that happens it will be a shame for humans to miss it...
- Gravityloss 5y agoHumans have certainly destroyed a lot of ecosystems, like a volcanic eruption or meteor impact would. So wild nature would recover from that, reclaiming corn fields etc. But humans have also transported life around, destroying diversity of ecosystems. That's a different kind of change. I guess it's similar to continent configuration changes, like Pangaea or so.
- turbinerneiter 5y agoIs this actually forgotten in science or is just not part of the political discussion? I.e. is it included in the models that scientists use to predict global warming?
- esarbe 5y agoThey are. Unfortunately it's difficult to explain scientific details to a largely uninformed public.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- aeroman 5y agoN2O is included in climate models (e.g [0]), partly (as noted in this article) because it is an effective GHG. It is also important for ozone chemistry and understanding ozone depletion [1]. [0] - https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2019JD030943 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2019JD03... [1] - https://science.sciencemag.org/content/326/5949/123 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/326/5949/123
- niyaven 5y agoI'm not a climate expert but already heard of this concern. It is well known in the scientific community, for more reasons than just gas emissions actually. The current techniques destroy many elements from the soil, making it very poor, which in turns increases the need for fertilizer, and leads to less biodiversity and more pollution. The IPCC is explaining in details the impact of N2O, since the 90s [1]. The IPCC is also providing synthesis to stakeholders, but I didn't check what are their stance on N2O in these summaries. I would say it's more absent from political discussion, which is only half true. If you promote organic agriculture (which is already subsidized in many countries), you're de facto inciting farmers to reduce the use of fertilizers, leading to less N2O emissions. [1] https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/05/ipcc_wg_I_1992_suppl_report_section_a1.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/05/ipcc_wg_I_19...
- david_draco 5y agoI thought the usual unit on the usual plots is "equivalent CO2 tons", which includes non-CO2 contributions.
- kumarski 5y agoWait til they learn about nitrogen trifluoride and silicon hexafluoride.
- lmilcin 5y agoWait till they learn about methane. It is respectable 100 times more potent than CO2 and it is produced naturally in vast quantities in thawing permafrost. It is ironic that the biggest producer of greenhouse gasses will soon be Siberia.
- gambiting 5y agoAt least methane has a very short life in the atmosphere. N2O and these other gases last hundreds of years before breaking down.
- lmilcin 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_methane_emissions Quote: They conclude that "release of up to 50 Gt of predicted amount of hydrate storage [is] highly possible for abrupt release at any time" See... there is a big bomb right over there. Methane might be 10 times less potent and it might be decaying couple of times faster, but there are many orders of magnitude more of it.
- tremon 5y agoThat's only partly true, since methane in the atmosphere decomposes into CO2. The methane itself causes a short powerful greenhouse effect, then decays into another long-term greenhouse gas.
- pfdietz 5y agoSF6 doesn't even break down in the stratosphere. You have to get up to the mesosphere. Estimated atmospheric lifetime is 3200 years, GWP over 23000.
- ben_w 5y agoN2O is about x10 worse per unit over 100 years: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warming-potentials https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/understanding-global-warmin...
- baybal2 5y agoThe submitter, midnightcity, has a rather peculiar news submission history.
- bencollier49 5y agoWell observed! I wonder if he's posting them as soon as they appear on the news sites. Quite an efficient way of harvesting karma. Unlike your post (or my response to it, I suspect).
- midnightcity 5y agoIt's just my way of working. I use the pomodoro technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique. Then I take a break, have a look at the list of alerts of new articles, and read / post whatever I find interesting. Then another block of work. It's effective for me, although it might not work for everyone.
- detritus 5y agoI'm curious - what's your motivation?
- FriedrichN 5y agoIt may be forgotten in some parts of the world, but certainly not in the Netherlands. Primarily because of the effects of nitrogen deposition on the environment and ammonia/methane in particular. There is basically a stop on building and expansion of agriculture as well as a reduction of the maximum speed on highways.
- GekkePrutser 5y agoCame here to say this.. Yeah the Netherlands has it really bad. The speed limits aren't a huge thing IMO but the building restriction has made the house prices astronomical :(
- esarbe 5y agoIt's good to see this start to be part of the discussion. To remind everyone; we're headed for a global calamity of unprecedented scale. We need to change our approach with regards to our life support system (i.e. the eco ecosystem) and how much damage we're doing to it. Nature is resilient, very much so. Biological processes are resilient to an incredible degree. This has allowed humanity to do astonishingly destructive things without too many repercussions. Resilience has hidden most of the damage we've caused. But we're pushing it to the breaking point and pushing ever harder every year. Human systems are not resilient. They are optimized for "efficiency". We've seen what disruptions even a relative harmless virus like Covid19 can do the the global economy. People need to take these issues seriously and things need to change.
- stinos 5y agoAlso interesting to note: the heavy use of nitrogen fertiliser is also one of the reasons for the biodiversity crisis. Which according to some is a problem just as serious as the climate crisis, but is much less reported on in global media. Basic principle for the operation: plants which thrive well on nitrogen (think fast-growing grasses, nettles, ...) get an advantage over other plants (typically slower growing long-living flowering plants) because the fertiliser doesn't simply stay in the location where it gets applied. More uniform vegetation then produces the typical chain reaction (simplified): less insects, less food for birds, less birds, ... So tackling the problem mentioned in the article could have a positive influence both on climate and biodiversity.
- hkt 5y agoIt is also worth shouting out the fact that healthy biospheres sequester carbon..
- TeMPOraL 5y agoOnly when growing. Stable biosphere is carbon neutral.
- hkt 5y agoNot so. Stable biospheres continuously deposit carbon in the soil.
- sokoloff 5y agoYou just repeated your assertion from the prior comment. Maybe you’re right, but introducing additional data, information, or argument is more helpful to the discussion than just saying “Yuh-huh”
- hkt 5y agoI honestly thought this was so established as to be obvious. I was mistaken, so, sorry. Here's a link that talks about how plants deposit carbon into the soil: https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/60/9/685/237929 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/60/9/685/237929 The key line would be this, from a cursory reading: "Long-term (millennia) C sequestration can be achieved when C from aboveground biomass transfers to the roots and enters the pool of SOC or SIC (hereafter SC, for soil C)." Obviously there's more context, but this is why old growth forests are huge carbon sinks: because they have undergone the process of sequestering carbon into the soil uninterrupted for such a long time. Again, apologies for taking the above for granted. Maybe it is less well known than I thought.
- PanosJee 5y agoAugmenta.ag fixes that They use machine vision & hyperapectral cameras to estimate nitrogen on the leaves and accordingly spread more, less or no fertilizer.
- Gravityloss 5y agoThese are the kind of companies where it's easy to see it's net positive. It's not trying to sell something that spends more resources, instead it reduces resource usage.
- throwaway769879 5y agoGiven the resources needed to construct, maintain and operate such machines, i wouldn't be so sure
- blingscramble 5y agoInteresting approach. Currently pairing soil testing with tissue testing is cost effective tool to put a value on the fertility growers apply to their fields. We need this movement towards efficient nutrient management to continue to adapt and/or add tools to address eutrophication of our watersheds due to point source runoff. Better nutrient management also brings a positive effect to growers agronomics.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y agoForgotten? We used to huff that stuff all the time as teenagers.
- stronglikedan 5y agoI just huffed some for a few hours straight on Wednesday afternoon. It's a godsend for those of us with dental anxiety.
- jiinga 5y agoThe most concerning source of nitrous oxide isn't even mentioned in the article and that's the thawing of the permafrost. Thawing permafrost is releasing massive amounts of CO2, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide, and the thawing permafrost is locked into a positive feedback loop, the warmer it gets the more the permafrost thaws, the more greenhouse gases get released, causing it to get warmer. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/06/harvard-chemist-permafrost-n2o-levels-12-times-higher-than-expected/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/06/harvard-chemi... Positive feedback loops keep running until they exhaust their energy source, which in this case is locked up greenhouse gases in the frozen permafrost. The permafrost sequesters about double the amount of greenhouse gases that is currently in the atmosphere. 24% of the landmass of the northern hemisphere is permafrost, and it's also the areas of the world that are warming the fastest. Let's also not talk about phytoplankton populations, which account for 50-80% of all the oxygen in the atmosphere, their population is declining due to ocean warming and acidification. When that population crashes, it will not only impact the oxygen levels in the atmosphere, but phytoplankton are the basis for the entire marine food chain, which 40% of all humans rely on for their main source of protein. Melting glaciers, thawing permafrost, warming oceans, acidification of the oceans, phytoplankton population decline, these are all positive feedback loops that have started due to human's releasing greenhouse gases. In 10-15 years the thawing permafrost will be outputting about the same amount of greenhouse gases as humans output, it won't be the same mix of chemicals, but it will have the same impact on warming. Unless someone invents a technology that can capture and sequester abut 45 Billion metric tonnes per year of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere the positive feedback loops will keep chugging along. Unfortunately we only have until the phytoplankton population crashes to invent the greenhouse gases capture and sequestor technology, because once that population crashes and the associated oxygen they create crash, life on the surface of the earth for creatures that need oxygen will become untenable.
- modo_mario 5y ago> which account for 50-80% of all the oxygen in the atmosphere >When that population crashes, it will not only impact the oxygen levels in the atmosphere Why is this?
- jokoon 5y agoA good reason why meat is not sustainable since it requires so much agri surface. Cut down meat, cut down surface.