The Nitrogen Fix: Breaking a Costly Addiction
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"Over the last century, the intensive use of chemical fertilizers has saturated the Earth’s soils, waters, and atmosphere with nitrogen. Now scientists are warning that we must move quickly to revolutionize agricultural systems and greatly reduce the amount of nitrogen we put into the planet's ecosystems."
Two more excerpts:
"Nitrogen affects more parts of the planet’s life-support systems than almost any other element, says James Galloway of the University of Virginia, who predicts: “In the worst-case scenario, we will move towards a nitrogen-saturated planet, with polluted and reduced biodiversity, increased human health risks and an even more perturbed greenhouse gas balance.”
"Today, of 175 million tons of nitrogen applied to the world’s croplands in a year, almost 50 percent is from chemical fertilizer. It has raised the “carrying capacity” of the world’s soils from 1.9 people per hectare of farmland to 4.3 — and 10 in China, where applications reach twice anything seen in Europe.
"This is a profound change to the biochemistry of life on Earth — and to our own bodies. Today, much of the nitrogen in our bodies comes not from biological sources but from giant chemical factories. We are, in a real sense, as much chemistry as biology. Vaclav Smil, the distinguished Canadian researcher into food and the environment at the University of Manitoba, calls the nitrogen fix 'an immense and dangerous experiment.' "
More at: http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2207
Nitrogen is saturating our planet, causing algae blooms, destroying sea life, dead zones, global warming, acid rain, eating the ozone layer and reducing nature's biodiversity.
Organic agriculture can answer to this.
This needs to be addressed along with global warming as they both go hand in hand.
Join Organic:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/
Two more excerpts:
"Nitrogen affects more parts of the planet’s life-support systems than almost any other element, says James Galloway of the University of Virginia, who predicts: “In the worst-case scenario, we will move towards a nitrogen-saturated planet, with polluted and reduced biodiversity, increased human health risks and an even more perturbed greenhouse gas balance.”
"Today, of 175 million tons of nitrogen applied to the world’s croplands in a year, almost 50 percent is from chemical fertilizer. It has raised the “carrying capacity” of the world’s soils from 1.9 people per hectare of farmland to 4.3 — and 10 in China, where applications reach twice anything seen in Europe.
"This is a profound change to the biochemistry of life on Earth — and to our own bodies. Today, much of the nitrogen in our bodies comes not from biological sources but from giant chemical factories. We are, in a real sense, as much chemistry as biology. Vaclav Smil, the distinguished Canadian researcher into food and the environment at the University of Manitoba, calls the nitrogen fix 'an immense and dangerous experiment.' "
More at: http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2207
Nitrogen is saturating our planet, causing algae blooms, destroying sea life, dead zones, global warming, acid rain, eating the ozone layer and reducing nature's biodiversity.
Organic agriculture can answer to this.
This needs to be addressed along with global warming as they both go hand in hand.
Join Organic:
http://current.com/groups/organicgreen/
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