Nitrogen is the new carbon

Posted on 18 May 2010 | by Public News Service | Print This Post

Scientists call it the biggest environmental disaster no one’s heard of, and they are gathering this week in Colorado to try to change that.

Nitrogen pollution from fertilizers and other sources can be detrimental to both water and air quality, experts say, leading to major health and environmental problems ranging from the onset of Alzheimers to the notorious “dead zones” at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

University of Colorado professor Alan Townsend with CU’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research says this meeting aims to create the first national nitrogen assessment.

“On one hand, we depend on fertilizer to grow our crops, and one of the key ingredients in that fertilizer is nitrogen. On the other hand, in general the world tends to use too much of it and use it too inefficiently.”

With all the focus on the oil spill in the Gulf, Townsend points out that the scope of the nitrogen problem is even greater — and that’s important to realize.

“There’s really essentially a nitrogen spill everyday. That’s the core of the problem.”

Nitrogen pollution has had documented impacts on Colorado’s alpine lakes, and Townsend adds that nitrogen is a key component in those “ozone alert” days that Coloradans are familiar with.

“Nitrogen that we end up emitting to the atmosphere through driving cars or running factories or putting fertilizers on fields is one of the key ingredients in making that ozone happen.”

The state’s new Clean Air, Clean Jobs Act will go a long way toward cutting the pollution from coal-power plants, Townsend says, but the problem is so far-reaching that a larger, coordinated effort is needed.

The nitrogen assessment meeting will be held 8 a.m.-5 p.m. May 18-20 at Millennium Harvest House, 1345 28th St., Boulder.

Listen to the Colorado News Connection podcast by Deborah Smith.

BOOTSTRAP: WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY
Tom Philpott at Grist outlines a variety of options to help reduce nitrogen in the environment through changes in eating habits and farming:

• Rethink what you eat: Americans consume an average of more than a half pound of meat per day each day. The livestock feed needed to generate all that meat — and our dairy and egg habits — consumes more than 40 percent [PDF] of our entire corn crop, by far the world’s largest.
• Push farmers to use best practices: “align their N applications more closely with their crops’ needs, perform more soil testing, try applying a little less and see if yields hold steady.”
• Promote a progressive 2012 Farm Bill: N-conscious citizens should prepare to involve themselves in what promises to be a bitterly contested farm-policy debate. The goal must be to shift federal funds from supporting large-scale corn production through commodity subsidies, to well-structured conservation programs that reward organic-style production.