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This story about the nature reserves plays well in Dutch media, which isn't surprising as it supports the national pride at being particularly diligent. Howeve
by emn13 4y ago
This story about the nature reserves plays well in Dutch media, which isn't surprising as it supports the national pride at being particularly diligent. However, it's a little misleading; the Netherlands is dealing with what looks like some of the worst NOx and NH3 pollution in the EU. I'm sure there are various causes for that, but it's measurable by satellite, and it's not merely a question of being overly zealous with nature reserves. Politicians don't like taking blame for dithering, so it's convenient to say their hands are tied by judges, rules, international treaties and the phase of the moon, but really, it's simply a problem that should likely be addressed regardless of the legal details of whatever happened to trigger the current flare up.
Furthermore, Dutch farmers enjoy popular support, remarkable influence, and they know it and use it. However, in actuality they have been warned for years if not decades by now that their emissions were not only harmful, but also unsustainable - yet lobby groups held real action at bay, as usual. An illustration of just how extreme that regulatory capture is should be apparent when you consider that not only does farming have the most millionaires of any industry; they have huge exemptions from wealth and estate taxes and are overrepresented in regulatory bodies the Dutch call waterschappen, which causes its own land misuse issues. Amusing anecdotes here include that the last time this nitrogen debate flaired up: despite livestock farming being responsible for the majority of emissions, lawmakers decided to reduce the speed limits on highways (responsible for a much smaller fraction of emissions in this instance) instead of confronting the farming unions. They're a real political force.
Farmers really don't deserve any pity here. Their industry is a real problem, and the individual farmers that actively muddy the water by trying spreading anti-science misinformation to protect their own interests are causing the Dutch state to persist with poor policy, including shifting costs from rich landowners (the farmers) onto the rest of the population; extremely regressive policies, in other words. Even where farmers will need to adapt to policies they've been warned about and have been delaying for years, current political proposals include excessively lucrative compensation for business losses incurred.
There surely are mitigating factors, but it's impossible to even have a rational discussion about this in Dutch politics because of the toxicity caused by farmers. I'm not holding my breath for a good outcome here. This isn't an example of Dutch diligence or over-zealousness; it's an example of sticking your head in the sand and blaming others for the consequences.
- misja111 4y ago> the Netherlands is dealing with what looks like some of the worst NOx and NH3 pollution in the EU Note that there very little NOx emission comes from farming; 92% of NOx comes from industry and traffic. Farming emits mostly NH3. > Dutch state to persist with poor policy, including shifting costs from rich landowners (the farmers) onto the rest of the population I do agree that the Dutch government has a tendency to shift costs from rich to poor. However amongst the nitrogen emitters, the farmers are not the richer party here: that is the NOx emitting industry.
- ricardobeat 4y agoDo you have a source for that number? Most of them point to agriculture as the main emitter: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1086854/distribution-nitrogen-oxides-emissions-in-the-netherlands-by-source/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1086854/distribution-nit... https://www.rivm.nl/sites/default/files/2019-09/grafiek_herkomst_stikstofdepositie_taart_0.png https://www.rivm.nl/sites/default/files/2019-09/grafiek_herk...
- misja111 4y agoYes, e.g. https://data.emissieregistratie.nl/emissies/grafiek?s=uiJzcgSoy https://data.emissieregistratie.nl/emissies/grafiek?s=uiJzcg... I can't open your first link, the second one is not about emissions but about depositions. Although I agree that depositions are the far more important number, there is a catch: there are no regular measurements of nitrogen depositions in NL, all numbers are estimates based on a model that has only emissions as input. After a lot of criticism about that, the RIVM has started to take deposit samples near 2 farms in 2020, hoping to be able to refine their models with the results. The results of those samples are not used in their famous nitrogen map yet, and anyway since they only measure near farms and not near industry, they won't tell much about NOx deposition.
- emn13 4y agoYeah, I'm lumping them together because that's the way they're talked about in the media and I'm not knowledgeable enough to know off the top of my head what the exact distribution of which pollutant is. And I'm almost certain that if the debate were rational, there'd be some way to find out which pollution is the most harmful/least expensive to avoid, and thus come up with rational prioritization in policy. That's why this whole pseudo-pastoral "just-hard-working-folk" shtick combined with fake surprise and outrage is so damaging: nobody is arguing for abolishing agriculture; everybody knows it's simply necessary - oh, and lucrative. But policy on this hot-button issue isn't even remotely based on science; it's based on politics, which in turn is based on whatever riles people up - so farmers are trying to portray this as some kind of evil bureacrats vs. the earth of the land, and nobody is talking about (at least not with any popular reach) why this is even a problem, what to do about it, etc etc etc.