Fertilizer
When you think about what contributes to climate change, you’re likely to conjure up images of gas-guzzling trucks, fast fashion and private jets. But other consumption habits we don’t think about greatly contribute to harming the Earth’s health, too - Yoram Kapulnik
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Fertilizer and Climate Change
Farmers add fertilizers to their soils to provide crops with the nutrients they need to grow. For thousands of years, humans have used mineral and organic fertilizers, like manure and ground bone, to improve soil fertility. In the last century, human-made fertilizers have greatly boosted crop production, letting farmers grow more food on less land. But this uptick in fertilizer use has come at a cost: planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. Worldwide, agriculture is the second-largest source of climate change pollution—and both the manufacturing and application of fertilizer has a heavy emissions toll.
Articles of Interest
Scientists make groundbreaking discovery that could secure our food supply....
Fertilizer is one of the most pollution-heavy aspects of farming because the production of its key ingredient, ammonia, requires high heat and intense pressure. Currently, synthetic ammonia production accounts for 2% of planet-warming pollution each year. Now, a team of Chinese and Australian scientists announced they have discovered a new way to produce ammonia for fertilizer that lessens its environmental impact.
Our Addiction to Nitrogen Fertilizers Undermines the Planet’s Health: What Are the Alternatives?
The agriculture sector in particular now depends on synthetic fertilizers, namely nitrogen-based fertilizers, to continue the pace of production and keep up with the ever-growing demand. As a cornerstone of modern agriculture, nitrogen fertilizers contributed to the rapid growth and high productivity of farming over the last century, while also raising alarm bells over their environmental impacts. While not as visually wrenching as a burning forest or displaced animals, our dependence on nitrogen-based fertilizers fuels the demise of vital planetary ecosystems and our own health.
Reducing nitrogen use key to human and planetary health: study
Reducing nitrogen pollution from global croplands is a "grand challenge," the group of international researchers said in a study in Nature outlining a dozen urgently-needed reforms.
Why firms are racing to produce green ammonia
Ammonia production currently accounts for nearly 2% of global CO2 emissions. Now, a string of companies aim to prove that they can make green ammonia, or alternatives, without wrecking the climate.
