Nitrogen Glut: Too Much of a Good Thing is Deadly for the Biosphere

By Ian Angus, Climate and Capitalism

Climate change deniers often claim that carbon dioxide cannot be harmful because plants need it to grow. The same false argument can be made about nitrogen, and our reply is the same: too much of a good thing can be deadly. Organisms and ecosystems that evolved in a world where the supply of reactive nitrogen was strictly limited are now being disrupted, in many cases destroyed, by an unprecedented nitrogen glut.

Beware of the N-bomb

By Gunnar Rundgren, Garden Earth

There are good, and frightening, reasons to closely follow the changes in the nitrogen cycle. We should not be surprised if the effects and costs of disturbing it turn out to be as dramatic as those for the carbon cycle.

Improving Air Quality with Clover

By Honor May Eldridge, Sustainable Food Trust

Greater action to address the root causes of air pollution from the agricultural sector is needed. To face the growing environmental crisis caused by nitrogen pollution there needs to be a fundamental shift in the way that we produce food.

Nitrogen Wars

By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future

So here I want to take a critical look at the Breakthrough Institute’s line on the necessity of synthetic nitrogen in world agriculture, which is laid out in its agronomic aspects in this post by Dan Blaustein-Rejto and Linus Blomqvist (henceforth B&B), and in its historical aspects in this one by Marc Brazeau.

With Too Much of a Good Thing, Europe Tackles Excess Nitrogen

By Christian Schwägerl, Yale Environment 360

In Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and other countries, European governments are beginning to push farmers, industry, and municipalities to cut back on fertilizers and other sources of nitrogen that are causing serious environmental harm.

The one thing you need to know about the president’s plan to address climate change

By Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights

The one thing you need to know about President Obama's plan to address climate change is that the most it will accomplish is slowing very slightly the pace at which the world is currently hurtling toward catastrophic climate change.