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
We might as well all just lay down and pull our dirt blankets over us! Or, if we truly love our fellow man suffering from hunger, donate ourselves to the Soylent Green Foundation.
Horse squeeze!
Nitrogen credits right here!
Hey! Gotta get your nitrogen credits while they’re cheap!
You can’t fight global warming without them!
Why deal with those dirty carbon credits when you can have clean nitrogen?
I’ve got enough to go around... step right up and I’ll sell you as many as you want.
I find it hard to believe that those conditions exist outside a lab, and consequently, that this "warning" is anything more than "sky-is-falling" hysteria.
Actually, they need to pull their collective heads out of that dark place. Wipe off their faces. Take some deep breaths and give their brains some of that nitrogen mixed with oxygen.
nump
Well there is one obvious way to end the gloom and doom. Simply eliminate the unhappy.
I can make that compromise.
Wow. Even I didn’t know it could be so dangerous. Bookmarked for my chem class.
Each year, Dihydrogen Monoxide is a known causative component in many thousands of deaths and is a major contributor to millions upon millions of dollars in damage to property and the environment. Some of the known perils of Dihydrogen Monoxide are:
Death due to accidental inhalation of DHMO, even in small quantities.
Prolonged exposure to solid DHMO causes severe tissue damage.
Excessive ingestion produces a number of unpleasant though not typically life-threatening side-effects.
DHMO is a major component of acid rain.
Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns.
Contributes to soil erosion.
Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals.
Contamination of electrical systems often causes short-circuits.
Exposure decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes.
Found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions.
Given to vicious dogs involved in recent deadly attacks.
Often associated with killer cyclones in the U.S. Midwest and elsewhere, and in hurricanes including deadly storms in Florida, New Orleans and other areas of the southeastern U.S.
Thermal variations in DHMO are a suspected contributor to the El Nino weather effect.
Another usless proferssor leaching off of society with the publish ir perish syndrom!
Check your nearest blue-green algae. This article is clearly hysterical.
I know!
We're doomed!
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