Posted on 05/16/2008 11:44:36 AM PDT by anymouse
While carbon dioxide has been getting lots of publicity in climate change, reactive forms of nitrogen are also building up in the environment, scientists warn.
"The public does not yet know much about nitrogen, but in many ways it is as big an issue as carbon, and due to the interactions of nitrogen and carbon, makes the challenge of providing food and energy to the world's peoples without harming the global environment a tremendous challenge," University of Virginia environmental sciences professor James Galloway said in a statement.
"We are accumulating reactive nitrogen in the environment at alarming rates, and this may prove to be as serious as putting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," said Galloway, author of a paper and co-author of a second on the topic in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
While nitrogen alone is inert and harmless, reactive nitrogen compounds — such as ammonia — have been released by its use in nitrogen-based fertilizers and the large-scale burning of fossil fuels.
Various forms of nitrogen contribute to greenhouse warming, smog, haze, acid rain dead zones with little or no life along the coasts, and depletion of the ozone layer in the stratosphere, the researchers concluded.
The researchers propose ways to reduce nitrogen use, ranging from encouraging its uptake by plants to recovering and reusing nitrogen from manure and sewage and decreasing nitrogen emissions from fossil fuel combustion.
International Nitrogen Initiative: http://www.initrogen.org
How long before they start targetting Oxygen? You know that too much of it will kill you. ;)
They are already targeting oxygen.
There are 2 oxygens in every carbon dioxide.
I’ll bet they are targeting the nitric oxides as well as opposed to the regular nitrogen. NOx, NO2, N2O... All that stuff. Lots of oxygen there as well.
“First they claimed that Carbon Dioxide was a pollutant. Now they go after Nitrogen - only the largest component in the atmosphere and critical to plant growth when combined with other elements in the soil.
How long before they start targetting Oxygen? You know that too much of it will kill you. ;) “
Nah, they’ll just skip over all of that and claim that man is the pollutant, the planet’s cancer and pass laws to eliminate our existence.
Worse yet, dihydogen monoxide.
It’s in absolutely everything, our lakes and seas are loaded with it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzLs60ZaNW4
I thought this was Scrappleface. This is serious?
Uh...wouldn't that be fertilizer?
Why yes, I had a friend who fell into a large pool of the stuff and nearly died. It got into her nose and prevented her from breathing. The stuff should be banned.
These people will not be happy unless 75% of the worlds population is dead. Until then, they will just be gloom and doom.
It’s been on the back burner, if you will... and it’s time to get grants renewed for more studies..
The earth is a living breathing thing and when it gets tired of irritants like humans and such , it will cleanse itself as it sees fit, ‘til then, some folks need to chill out and enjoy the next approaching ice age..
This stuff`s so insane I gotta bookmark it for future laffs
'Tis only a matter of time before you will have to diaper your pets and compost their droppings - chicken owners be alert to nosy neighbors who are practicing their Environmental Religion as they peer over your backyard fence, counting the chickens, ducks, peacocks etc. then pin a note on your door telling you to dispose of the nitrogen seen littering the ground in some incinerator the government has made you buy. I will be the first to be accused of incinerating the nosy neighbor/environmentalist
WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? THEIR ATTEMPTS TO GARNER A FEW MOMENTS OF FAME ARE JUST PLAIN PITIFUL! S**** the Scientists, the environmentalists and the horse they rode in on!!!
Bloody Sam,
I went to the DHMO web site - do not have time just now to peruse it - are they pulling my leg? It appears that this is far worse than global warming or climate change - lordy it is just awful...............
It’s like the polar bear that just declared as endangered...there are 3X as many now as 10 yrs ago, and the ice shelf is twice as thick...so where is the common sense. It’s just a ruse to keep us from drilling in Anwar.
I find all these people ‘SAY’ that these things are happening but no substantial proof that is in English for us to read as normal people.
Just so long as they leave my twinkies alone
Bush’s fault.
"Now that's what I call high quality H2O." - Robert Boucher Jr.
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