... six months earlier than we would have done, thanks to nitrogen pollution. Seeing as life expectancy is steadily increasing, by at least one year for every decade, all I can say is "We fixed that five years ago."
Particularly chucklesome is the notion of nitrogen pollution 'costing the EU £280 billion'. The EU is a few thousand bureaucrats, lobbyists and politicians, so do they seriously mean that it costs each of these people several million pounds?
The whole article continues in the same vein, for example:
"The report says more careful application of fertiliser will benefit farmers by saving money. It will benefit the climate by avoiding the energy used to create the fertiliser."
I'm sure if farmers can save money by using the bare minimum of fertiliser, then they are probably already doing so. And so on and so forth.
Another one bites the dust
2 hours ago
11 comments:
Because of the way this story is presented, many people will not realise how much guesswork is involved here. Much is necessarily theoretical, based on computer models and incomplete data.
To understand the nitrous oxide cycle would require large-scale experiments which as far as I know have not yet been carried out. They have barely begun for carbon dioxide, let alone nitrous dioxide. Yet from Roger Harrabin’s piece, you'd never know it.
Oops - nitrous dioxide should read nitrous oxide.
When you see this sort of statement
....The problem would be greatly helped if less meat was consumed, the report says.....
don't you kind of get the teensiest inkling of where the next round of bansturbation will begin after alcohol has had the treatment?
"Reactive nitrogen "
They are taking the piss. Show it to me. (outside a lab, or similar)
AKH, I forgot to mention that this is squarely aimed at shutting down half of UK agriculture, because we have tended to use more nitrate fertilizers and we do a disporportionate amount of beef and dairy farming and almost all sheep farming in the EU.
FT, yup. Let's call it 'beefsturbation', shall we?
VFTS, good point, the atmosphere is 80% nitrogen, the whole point being that it does not react.
Interesting stat from here:
"Atmospheric mixing ratios for nitrous oxide now stand at around 315 parts per billion (ppb) compared to a pre-industrial high of 275ppb."
Yup, 315 parts per billion, as opposed to CO2 which is around 390 parts per million, in other words there's only a thousandth as much nitrous oxide as there is CO2 (and I ain't too worried about that either).
"and the release of nitrous oxides from uncovered dung heaps pollutes the air."
From great steaming piles of shit like this article, I suppose he means. The fact that it fails to distinguish between nitrous oxide, N2O, nitrogen dioxide, NO2, nitrogen monoxide, NO, atmospheric nitrogen, nitrates , xxNO3, and particulate carbon ("including small particulates that get sucked deep into the lungs") does not give me any confidence in the rest of it.
Perhaps someone ought to tell the BBC about the dangers posed by atmospheric DHMO - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DHMO_hoax
Bayard,
we have to call that "reactive hydrogen"
At over £300/tonne you can bet your bottom dollar that farmers are cutting back on the nitrogenous fertilisers as much as possible. There's no point throwing it around willy nilly at that price.
> the atmosphere is 80% nitrogen, the whole point being that it does not react
Er, no, it's ALREADY reacted nitrogen.
Nitrogen on its own is highly reactive, that's why it's used in bombs!
S, ta for confirmation.
AC1, sure, the atmosphere is 80% N2 molecules rather than N atoms, let's not quibble. I assumed people would know that.
"I assumed people would know that"
The BBC obviously assumes that people know bugger all about science, who are we to differ?
Post a Comment