The full horror of the ‘nitrogen’ war on agriculture is becoming more apparent every day. Food supplies around the world face collapse if the use of nitrogen fertiliser is severely restricted under Net Zero requirements. It is claimed that the fertiliser is warming the Earth and causing the climate to break down, as the by-product nitrous oxide is released into the atmosphere. In fact the entire global food supply is in danger of being trashed for the sake of what recent scientific work notes is almost unmeasurable 0.064°C warming per century.
Policies to address this non-existent crisis have already done enormous harm in Sri Lanka, where a ban on nitrogen fertiliser caused a rapid collapse in food yields, and led to the President fleeing the country in a hurry. The Canadian Government is committed to a 30% reduction in N2O levels by 2030. In the Netherlands, the Government is following European Union instructions and trying to remove farmers from the land. Any compensation paid will be tied to a restriction not to start farming again anywhere in the EU. Political discontent is growing, and there are already fears for the supply of agricultural products since the Netherlands is the second largest food exporter in the world.
Nitrogen is a vital component of plant metabolism which is obtained from the soil. Alas, there is not enough nitrogen in the soil to grow plants at the scale needed to feed global populations. Before the arrival of commercial nitrogen fertilisers, famine was a frequent feature of the unreliable food supply across parts of the world. Without the fertiliser, famine will resume its gruesome role, something mainstream Net Zero politicians have to address in the near future. Virtue-signalling green delusions about ‘rewilding’, bug diets and organic farming will not feed the world, probably not even a quarter of it.
A recent theoretical physics paper from four distinguished scientists said there was evidence that the amount of N2O in the atmosphere, a gas with warming properties, had never been constant over time. There have been large changes in atmospheric concentrations in inter-glacial periods like the current one. Nitrous oxide is a more powerful ‘greenhouse’ gas than carbon dioxide, but it accounts for only 0.34 parts per million (ppm), growing at only 0.00085 ppm per year. Currently CO2 is at 420 ppm, and the molecules are increasing 3,000 times faster in the atmosphere than N2O.
Like all greenhouse gases, its ability to trap heat within narrow bands of the infrared spectrum diminishes after a certain level as the gas becomes ‘saturated’. This helps explain why greenhouse gas levels have been much higher in the past without the Earth turning into an Armageddon fireball. After a certain point, any increased warming becomes logarithmic, according to the physicists, meaning it rises ever more slowly in response to additional greenhouse gases, which again provides a plausible explanation as to why temperatures have stayed within a relatively small band across the paleo record.
Every day seems to bring fresh concerns about the destruction likely to be wrought by the collectivist Net Zero project. As we have seen in recent articles, absolutist Net Zero fanatics at the Government-funded U.K. FIRES project look to a world in 2050 where Britain will lose 75% of its energy. Flying, shipping and eating beef and lamb will be banned, while bricks, concrete and glass will almost cease to exist. All the major political parties supporting the current strategy run away from facing true Net Zero reality. In the view of U.K. FIRES leader Professor Julian Allwood, the current strategy is as unrealistic as “magic beans fertilised by unicorn’s blood”.
The four physicists note that few citizens realise that the effects of N2O on the atmosphere are “negligible”. The proposed burdensome regulations on farming, ranching and dairying “will have no perceptible effect on climate, but some of them will do great harm to agricultural productivity and food supplies”. It is noted that one of the major factors behind the world’s “unprecedented” abundance of food in recent years has been the use of mineral nitrogen fertiliser. “It is not possible to maintain highly productive agriculture without nitrogen fertiliser,” they add.
One of the authors of the recent report, Professor William Happer of Princeton, recently teamed up with Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT to make clear what a disaster the world faced. Billions of people around the world faced starvation if the production of nitrogen fertiliser was banned. It would create “worldwide starvation” once half the world does not have enough to eat.
To back up their claims, the authors published the above graph. This shows clearly the “remarkable” increase in crop yields after the widespread use of nitrogen fertiliser began around 1950.
In his theoretical paper, Happer also notes some of the disasters that have occurred in the past when “ideologically-driven” government agriculture mandates “have usually led to disaster”. In the Soviet Union, a war on farmers in the 1930s led to millions dying of starvation. Folk memories of the Golodomor (hunger-murder), when millions of Ukrainians also died at the same time, “played no small part” in the present war in Ukraine.
Mandates to restrict animal numbers and fertiliser use will dramatically slash agricultural yields. To continue feeding the world, agricultural areas will have to increase and encroach on native habitats, which could have remained untouched with sensible use of fertiliser. “The result will be more environmental stress, not less,” the physicists write. When even the projected benefit is so negligible, this is a policy with nothing to commend it.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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Nitrogen in the atmosphere does not just build up and up ad-infinitum, it is a vital element that moves through the natural world in a complex 4 stage cycle. Any worries about nitrogen need to fully examine the operation of this cycle in our modern farming systems to determine what is actually happening?
It is true that over the last 70 years nitrogen fertiliser has been cheap and readily available and consequently it has been applied with gay abandon to boost yields and provide cheap food. Ironically we are now at a time when nitrogen fertiliser is getting more expensive and supplies tighter and so the market is driving farmers to be more circumspect with nitrogen usage. Modern technology is a great help in that respect, precision farming techniques, satellite surveillance of crops and hi-tec monitoring off run-off are all now possible and with some technical understanding and effort, could, in my opinion, be used to good effect to ensure effect use of fertiliser with minimal waste.
The blunderbuss approach to this problem (if it is a problem) by the net-zero zealots and their refusal to consider subtle complex technological solutions which could be implemented indicates to me that there is an insidious anti-human agenda going on here.
Correct. There is obviously a compromise which could be agreed between those demanding an end to the use of Nitrogen fertilisers and the farming industry which knows that farming becomes nonviable and unproductive without them.
The fact that the Eco Zealots won’t countenance a compromise is evidence that their objective has nothing to do with the climate or sustainability, and everything to do with destruction of the food supply and therefore control of the population.
The Eco Zealots are just a front.. you need to ask whose pushing the policies that these useful idiots are screaming about..
One cannot compromise with the idologically driven eco-terrorists – best to much them down for fertiliser.
Mulching the eco-terrorists has merit although Bliar and a few others would definitely sour the mixture.
Oh I do love a ‘mulched’ eco-terrorist as a good starter for the day.. haha
It’s very hard to avoid the conclusion that it’s just the latest paragraph in the Permacrisis manual. There has been half a century of ever-changing planet-killing risks, which nobody could hope to research enough to refute before the next one comes along.
And the constant generation of new ones makes everyone forget that none of the others has changed to world one iota. We are not in an ice age, food has not been outstripped by population, oil has not peaked, plastic has not buried us, rain is not acid, and neither is the ocean, the ozone hole wobbles to and fro as it has since they discovered it, nobody can name a single one of the millions of species that have gone extinct from climate change, bees are still thriving, etc, etc, etc. Even the aliens have done no more invading than they did in the 1950s UFO craze.
Fear is control – that must be the only conclusion.
Good post Jon.. I agree with every word..
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
H. L. Mencken
Mencken would have been amazed at the state of demonology nowadays…
Exactly..
What a cracking post.
“…indicates to me that there is an insidious anti-human agenda going on here.”
I have referred to this nefarious agenda many times on DS in one word :
DEPOPULATION.
Repeat.. DEPOPULATION
I hope the Net Zero Zealots will be the first to starve.
Unfortunately they tend to be the richer people so they will be the last to starve when food prices skyrocket.
“Currently CO2 is at 420 ppm, and the molecules are increasing 3,000 times faster in the atmosphere than N2O.”
Huh?
I’ve never known this world to be run by such a belligerant,arrogant bunch of brain dead fools as it is today!
Not fools, maniacs.
Fools to a degree because all the planning in the world won’t stop major and unforseen cock-ups. And I mean real cock-ups.
At some point no matter how extensive the planning of the Davos Deviants things will go pear shaped for them. I may well no longer be here but matters will right themselves.
Invent more and more crises, and then never let them go to waste. One of the world’s fastest growing industries ——The Manufactured Crisis Industry. —–It is funny how people hardly believe a word coming from the mouths of politicians, except when they claim they want to save the planet, then all of a sudden nearly everyone believes them. But as someone once pointed out. “The urge to save humanity is almost always a false face for the urge to rule it”.
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false face for the urge to rule it”
this is the only reason mankind would try to destroy itself! The ones who advocate this destruction will be the ones at the top least effected by it!
Save the planet.. eat a politician.. well on second thoughts..ugh!!!!
If they ben beef and pork I might start eating vegans, although there isn’t usually much meat on them.
I find that, but what there is,is very lean!
The Globalists appear to be deploying a 21st century version of a scorched-earth policy in order to control “the peasants.”
Scorched earth policy: “the military tactic of destroying everything that enables the enemy to wage war, including crops, livestock, buildings and infrastructure.”
To this we can add individual mobility, free association (including the use of modern technology to “associate”) and personal financial security/autonomy as they seek to control the ability to transact.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with the climate: the war on nitrogen is about creating desperate people, who will be easy to control.
On the mark.. RTSC.. spot on..
Agreed. In the west we have seen towns and cities reduced to third world style ghettos as industry, commerce and investment leave these places, the only infrastructure remaining is supermarkets and government services, councils, education etc. and charity shops, its getting worse, as supermarkets safe guard profits and governments and councils safe guard pensions which have become unaffordable.
You can now get your food delivered to your door, so you don’t need your car, you can get medical help by phone, you don’t leave your home. The governments are reviewing cryptocurrencies, the credits often referred to in science fiction. You will be given what they think you will need
With the modern world full of apathy, and the younger generations happy to do as they are told, how long will it be until all we desire will be delivered to our doors without the need for leaving your dwelling, for those who are lucky enough to have one that is.
I have been luck in my life to be able to say I have accomplished a few things and are content with these accomplishments, I still drive to achieve more although my sights are now set lower. How many people in the future will have the opportunity to be able to reflect on the same.
We have lived through the best times. Good housing, cars, food, foreign holidays, and no world wars. For the younger generations it looks like all that is gone unless they wake up and fight back.
Indeed we have..
‘Like all greenhouse gases, its ability to trap heat within narrow bands of the infrared spectrum diminishes after a certain level as the gas becomes ‘saturated’.’
I’m not sure this is quite the right point, is it? I think, rather, it is that the infra-red energy in the band that N2O absorbs is already fully absorbed by existing N20. Therefore, adding more N20 does not increase absorption.
Correct me if I am wrong.
You’re right.. you can only get a pint in a pint glass..
The global food supply must be trashed.. why.. too many useless eaters. Its not as if those behind the curtain (you know who they are) haven’t tried this before. Stalin did it after all..
Schwab is a true disciple of Hitler – close your eyes and picture him saying ‘Ze furher voz right!’ Hitler’s extermination plans were not limited to world jewry. He had plans to exterminate the entirety of humanity, except for the blonde, oval-faced, blue-eyed inhabitants of northern Norway, who were as much unlike himself as it was possible to be. He liked them.
Sorry allan.. but I don’t buy into the Hitler stuff, its tripe. I’ve read enough over many years to convince me that history surrounding WW2 sucks. Its the history of the so called winners. Establishment history..
Hitler also considered 70% of Germans racially impure, and unfit to reproduce, and he therefore planned mass sterilization.
Who told you that.. Enid Blyton..
That’s certainly tosh. Insofar Mein Kampf goes, Hitler was planning to use selective breeding of Germans to increase the number of true Aryans among them. Another idea he had was that people who were less fit for reproduction should be encouraged to make the sacrifice of abstaining from sex and rather, dedicate their lives to raising racially more valuable orphans.
Oh look.. I’ve got red marks against my work. I wonder why..
Of course.. its because if someone challenges/questions the history we’ve had rammed down our throats for the past 70 odd years they are immediately rebuked, not listened to. Those who claim critical thinking skills, for some reason can’t think critically about events that changed the world for ever, and killed 60-million people in the process.
Oh.. but then, we were, and are the good guys.. eh!!. We fought the good war, just like we’re fighting to save the planet now. Truth is our sword.. eh!!!.. Oh.. hang on a minute, we comment on this site because we are supposedly sceptics, we known we’re being lied to. And guess what, we’re being lied to by the descendents of those who’ve been telling lies for millennia. The same little groupings.. passing the baton to the next generation to pick up. They haven’t changed.. still there.
Time to employ those critical thinking skills.. ideally to who was really behind both the first and second world wars. Get the correct answer to that and it’ll lead directly to who’s behind scams like this article is focussing on..
I’m over the target.. I know it.. and I don’t effing care
…so rather ironic, that Russia is the major exporter, and one of the top five producers..along with China….
Another fantastic own goal for the glorious ‘West’ it would seem….
Good comment. Has anyone been paying attention to the G7 mob actions against the BRICS mob, and now Russia and China are supposed to be trading in the Yuan, not the Dollar and various other currencies within the intra BRICS trade exchanges. The G7 economies cannot exist without the BRICS economies but is doing everything it can to undermine them. How long will it be before BRICS fully retaliate in kind.
The BRICS do not appear to be under the control of the WEF and are setting up their own alternative economy. This is why G7 (and MSM) are so against them, trying to force them back in to the fold. I personally wish them well
I also wish them well, a group growing by the year, the members of which control vast swathes of the worlds resources, all of which the G7 need. The irony is this could have been averted by disbanding the G7 and promoting the G20 which already has BRICS members included within it. A missed opportunity.
It certainly is ebygum.. I’m with you..
Seconded.
Thanks Hux.. I appreciate it.
Sometimes I despair that people can’t get past what’s basically a pack of lies. I’m certainly not saying I’m some all knowing guru.. but.. I’m past my three score years and ten, have a lot of real life experience under my belt, and the research to go with it. Plus.. had relatives who both lived through and fought in WW2.. their prognosis doesn’t stack up with the alleged history..
George, I have to say that over the last three years I have had what I can only describe as a shuddering awakening. And I’m not on my own although frequently it feels so. Neil Oliver has a YouTube video on similar.
I am and have always been a big reader of history and British history particularly. The last three years have had me re-evaluate all my understanding of our history. I fully appreciate where you are coming from. Most disturbing is my understanding of who and why WW1 started. There is a Corbett report on this but I have not yet looked at it. Doubtless my understanding of WWII also requires reassessment.
I understand where you are coming from in other words.
Thanks Huxley.. its certainly a path that people don’t like treading.. questioning the history they’ve accepted as the truth for the best part of their lives. Its dangerous, unsettling.. but until people are truly aware of their history.. it surely will keep repeating in the murderous fashion that it has..
I agree with all on this, history is a necessary read in its true unedited form. There is some pretty unsavoury questions that need answering about both WW1 & WW2, and most of these allude to an old adage of ; first comes their merchants, then comes their armies.
So true..nige.. so true..
Seriously..Bill has plowed millions into ‘fake meat’ production ..he’s like a walking billboard advertising what’s coming next……
…the man NEVER puts money where it isn’t going to make him a profit….
Calling it a “response” is arguably a bit charitable. If you invent a crisis, the “response” is really a pretend response, and represents something you wanted to do anyway, or something that allows you to achieve some other unstated goal. Or they’ve all gone stark raving mad. As with covid, take your pick. Mad or evil.
When the food supply crashes and people begin starving they will pick out a few bad weather events and blame it all on climate change, then double down on their ” response” to this made up crisis. Evil, not mad.
Perhaps attitudes to cost and reward differ among farmers but my father was a small farmer who watched all costs carefully and would never use fertiliser “with gay abandon”. I think that is an unjustified trope.
I work with a few farmers and they NEVER waste money. They would not dream of fertilising to excess. Actually, fertilising “with gay abandon” is counterproductive and for that reason the farmers I know would never do it.
Damn right.. farmers are as tight as a ducks rear end, and right now they’re being stiffed by their respective governments, including our own. Who.. by the way.. are outright offering huge amounts of tax payers money for farmers to give up their land and farming.
Food security.. that’s exactly what they’re trying to destroy..
Whilst being in favour of criticism of rapid political over reaction, in this case to do with the manufacture of artificial fertilisers – typically ammonium nitrate fuelled by natural gas (methane), there are organisations that oppose it’s use in general. E.g. the Soil Association (https://www.soilassociation.org/ ) – which I’m a member of.
There are quite a few farmers that avoid the use of it by using techniques that do not need it. They don’t look that stupid as the price of products they don’t need are rising rapidly.
yes organic farming[ i buy organic and also from local organic farmers] uses manure from the cows ,chickens, pigs and sheep , they don’t have to buy nitrogen fertilizer . so disappointed ,used to admire prince charles for being for organic farming and against GMOS and now to find out he’s WEF and read approved [ didnt know he could approve stuff anymore ]. a new unlabeled GMO in food . even more disappointed.
You’re lucky to find out anything. Secrecy goes with the role of being the monarch, as he’s supposed to be apolitical, although his previous views are quite well known.
The Soil Association is to be despised. It sanctions products for use in organic farming that it has no idea what they actually are.
What kind of crazy is this? Never mind whether nitrogen has an impact on climate or not – do the governments of countries like Sri Lanka or Canada, along with their proposal to cut nitrogen emissions by 30% (in the case of Sri Lanka, a maniacal abandonment of it altogether) have a proposal for a replacement for this vital element of large scale agriculture?
We need to distinguish between nitrogen and nitrogen oxide. Our atmosphere is 80% N.
When writing an article about Nitrous Oxide, Mr Morrison, please get your facts right about atmospheric concentrations. You write:
“Nitrous oxide is a more powerful ‘greenhouse’ gas than carbon dioxide, but it accounts for only 0.34 parts per million (ppm), growing at only 0.00085 ppm per year.”
Nitrous Oxide is measured in parts per billion (yes, billion!) ppb NOT ppm. It is more powerful but it is far less concentrated. It is being set up obviously as the next demonic gas but in reality it is farming and the growing of food that is being set up. We have to be so precise when talking about these things because the climate zealots will jump on just about everything.
I wonder what the next gas will be to be demonised…Hydrogen perhaps? Especially if someone develops a commercial hydrogen powered engine. I know someone who is dead smart and is working on this as no doubt others around the world are too. Hydrogen is a plentiful gas and one of the building blocks of the universe. Wouldn’t that be hilarious to the car denying psychopaths if we all had hydrogen vehicles that produced filtered water!
Look to the World Economic Forum and what they told Sri Lanka to do.
And the consequences.
We need to fight these mad 5uckers.
What next, a ban on water, after all it is by orders of magnitude the most powerful greenhouse gas?
Don’t give them ideas!
Water rationing was promised for this country by 2030. I cannot remember where I saw this but it is already being “promoted.”
Obviously, given that we have no shortage of rainfall in the UK the suggestion of shortages is simply grotesque fear mongering.
Sadly, we have not built a new reservoir in the last thirty years and given the numbers we have imported the likelihood of water shortages is entirely plausible.
Great idea.
Maybe tax it.
Create a crisis. Water is bad and will destroy the earth. But I can save you. Invent a ‘water-absorbing’ machine. Get rich and powerful. Jet from conference to conference telling people how bad they are drinking water, taking showers with it etc. While you sip water during your speech to keep your mouth moist. Hard to talk with a dry mouth.
‘Water is your enemy’.
Again – a great idea.
Net Zero what, exactly?
The Climate Change Act 2008, amended as of May 2023, commits the United Kingdom to reduce emissions of six gases and “any other greenhouse gas”. The six are:
Chemical formulas (Wikipedia):
Net Zero C O H N S F or what? Net Zero ionic or covalent bonds? Net Zero absorption or emission of light at what frequency?
Net What?
This whole thing is completely mad, all the Nitrogen in fertilizer is obtained from… the atmosphere! So return of some does not change the concentration at all. The Otswold process forms Nitric acid and Ammonia synthesis from atmospheric Nitrogen and cracked Hydrogen by direct reaction forms Ammonium Nitrate fertilizer. Simple enough for anyone to understand, and then make false claims about! The whole lot could probably be made to run on wind or solar power if one really wanted, so nothing is not obtained as natural source materials, air, water, and quite a lot of energy.
NetZero is an ideology/religion.
Everything is black and white.
Their goal is a heaven on earth and no amount of negative consequences/facts will stand in their way.
Hmmn.. not so sure on ‘heaven’ GMO.. we’re heading into a satanic wasteland. Then.. perhaps that’s their idea of heaven..