Read a fine new National Geographic article on the paradox of nitrogen fertilizer: We can’t live without it, and it is polluting our water and air.
“Nearly half the people on the planet wouldn’t be alive if not for the abundant food made possible by nitrogen fertilizer…(O)veruse pollutes waterways and releases greenhouse gases,” the article states.
After you have read the National Geographic article, view video of a 2012 Freshwater Society lecture on the “wicked problem” of human-manufactured nitrogen by Purdue University agricultural economist Otto Doering. And read Freshwater’s q-and-a interview with Doering, who led a committee that prepared a major report on nitrogen for the Environmental Protection Agency.