Sustainablog

Ok, I didn’t actually clear this challenge with the Nobel Committee, but I think we could convince them.  Nobels were awarded early in the 20th century when German scientists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch made the sequential advances that made it possible to make synthetic nitrogen fertilizer from the nitrogen gas that makes up ~80% of the atmosphere.  Without their contributions we could not have improved the lives of billions of people, and we could never have fed the increase in world population that has occurred since their work.  Of course that comes with the environmental issues I’ve been discussing in my previous posts.  I’m not forgetting that there are changes that need to be made in the way we farm to make nitrogen use more efficient and to prevent water pollution issues.

The Carbon Footprint of Fertilizer Issue

The other thing that would be good to address is the “carbon footprint” of running Haber-Bosch.  For every pound of ammonia that is synthesized, about 3.7 pounds of carbon dioxide is generated (mainly through the use of natural gas to generate hydrogen). That means to fertilize an acre of corn at 120 pounds of nitrogen, there are carbon dioxide emissions that are the equivalent of ~20 gallons of diesel. That works out to 1.59 billion gallon equivalents for just the US corn crop - some serious carbon emissions (I’ve already posted about why Organic fertilizers are not the solution here).
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The large-scale Organic dairy cooperative, “Organic Valley” has just sunk to a new low in the practice of “I will market against my farmer neighbors by stoking consumer’s fears.” They announced that they have launched an on-line calculator that is supposed to show you how much pesticide and fertilizer use is avoided when you buy their products.  The news release essentially boils down to the message, “buy our products or you will probably die!”  It also essentially accuses the 97.5% of us who don’t buy Organic of destroying the planet.

When talking about pesticides the press report says: “For adults, exposure through diet has been linked to infertility, Parkinson’s, testicular cancer, birth defects and much more. More than one million children in America age five and under ingest at least 15 pesticides daily. Early exposures are suspected in the sharp rise in health problems including autism, obesity, asthma, brain cancer and other childhood cancers.”  This broad-brush assertion is misleading on so many levels that it is hard to know where to start.  I’m not saying that there have never been any health issues with any pesticide anywhere, but we also have sufficient food in part because of pesticides.  Though many people don’t know it, there are pesticides used on organic crops as well.  Actually, the EPA has done a very good job of regulating pesticide use over the years so that people don’t need to be frightened about their food.

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