Posted on 03/12/2023 12:51:22 PM PDT by dennisw
Emissions of the greenhouse gas commonly known as laughing gas are soaring. Can we cut emissions from its greatest anthropogenic source? I In the world's effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the source of our food is coming into the spotlight. There's good reason for that: Agriculture accounts for 16 to 27% of human-caused climate-warming emissions. But much of these emissions are not from carbon dioxide, that familiar climate change villain. They're from another gas altogether: nitrous oxide (N2O).
Also known as laughing gas, N2O does not get nearly the attention it deserves, says David Kanter, a nutrient pollution researcher at New York University and vice-chair of the International Nitrogen Initiative, an organisation focused on nitrogen pollution research and policy making. "It's a forgotten greenhouse gas," he says.
Yet molecule for molecule, N2O is about 300 times as potent as carbon dioxide at heating the atmosphere. And like CO2, it is long-lived, spending an average of 114 years in the sky before disintegrating. It also depletes the ozone layer. In all, the climate impact of laughing gas is no joke. Scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have estimated that nitrous oxide comprises roughly 6% of greenhouse gas emissions, and about three-quarters of those N2O emissions come from agriculture.
But despite its important contribution to climate change, N2O emissions have largely been ignored in climate policies. And the gas continues to accumulate. A 2020 review of nitrous oxide sources and sinks found that emissions rose 30% in the last four decades and are exceeding all but the highest potential emissions scenarios described by the IPCC. Agricultural soil â especially because of the globe's heavy use of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser â is the principal culprit.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Humanity has tipped the Earth’s nitrogen cycle out of balance. Before the rise of modern agriculture, most plant-available nitrogen on farms came from compost, manure and nitrogen-fixing microbes which take nitrogen gas (N2) and convert it to ammonium, a soluble nutrient that plants can take up through their roots. That all changed in the early 1900s with the debut of the Haber-Bosch process that provided an industrial method to produce massive amounts of ammonia fertiliser.
This abundance of synthetic fertiliser has boosted crop yields and helped to feed people around the globe, but this surplus nitrate and ammonium comes with environmental costs. Producing ammonia fertiliser accounts for about 1% of all global energy use and 1.4% of CO2 emissions (the process requires heating nitrogen gas and subjecting it to pressures of up to 400 atmospheres, so it’s very energy-intensive). More importantly, the fertiliser drives increased emissions of nitrous oxide because farmers tend to apply the nitrogen to their fields in a few large batches during the year, and crops can’t use it all.
Here’s my problem....If we reduce Co2...which gas will fill the void....or did they forget about that.
Reduce the oxygen being consumed by these scammers until the problem is resolved
ð ð ð ð ð ð ð ð ð ð ð ð
The Dutch farmers are out in full force today. They are getting ruined by their Government over their nitrous oxide emissions. What is going on with the new climate boogie man called nitrous oxide? That it is allegedly 300x more warming than CO2?
This looks like more lies, bs and exaggerations from the warmist cult
If anyone is not a farmer they need to shut their effing queer mouths.
Anyone who thinks that this is enough to change the climate is too dumb for words. The public is waking up to the CO2 myth, so they have to find a new root cause for natural climate variability.
An overabundance of laughing gas might explain why the LGBTQueers have gone wild. They’re not laughing but are certainly giddy with enthusiasm, each about his own deviance.
“More junk science. N2O concentration amounts to 0.000033%”
Thanks. This is the kind of information that is useful to throw at the global warming cultists
I can live with that.
That reminds me.
Whatever happened to “acid rain”? Remember how it was going to be the end of the world as we knew it?
It just sorta faded away. Kinda like the “Ozone Hole” that was also going to kill us all.
So we should stop doing Whippets?
The sport of dragracing soon to be
outlawed....
The sport of dragracing soon to be
outlawed....
No laughing matter!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.