Tag: agriculture

Stop Farming? And Why blame combusition?

Published on by sunshinehours14 Comments

Interesting study demonizing “combustion emissions” and farm emissions”

Emissions from farms outweigh all other human sources of fine-particulate air pollution in much of the United States, Europe, Russia and China, according to new research. The culprit: fumes from nitrogen-rich fertilizers and animal waste combine in the air with combustion emissions to form solid particles, which constitute a major source of disease and death, according to the new study.

The good news is if combustion emissions decline in coming decades, as most projections say, fine-particle pollution will go down even if fertilizer use doubles as expected, according to the new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Agricultural air pollution comes mainly in the form of ammonia, which enters the air as a gas from heavily fertilized fields and livestock waste. It then combines with pollutants from combustion—mainly nitrogen oxides and sulfates from vehicles, power plants and industrial processes—to create tiny solid particles, or aerosols, no more than 2.5 micrometers across, about 1/30 the width of a human hair.

Notice how combustion is evil.gases-n2o

Yet, according to the EPA:

Agricultural soil management is the largest source of N2O emissions in the United States, accounting for about 79% of total U.S. N2O emissions in 2014. Nitrous oxide is also emitted during the breakdown of nitrogen in livestock manure and urine, which contributed to 4% of N2O emissions in 2014.

 

It isn’t combusion emissions creating N2O!!!!!!!!

“Science” Funding Runs Out Because Fracking Wasn’t Evil

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They were researching fracking in Ohio and trying to find evidence of contaminated ground water.

They didn’t find any evidence.

The donors who were are all in favor of the research when it looked like they could demonize fracking stopped the funding.54ca55cf14c93_-_fracking-myths-01-0911-xln-73259275

However, Townsend-Small said in an email Monday to The Daily Signal, those decisions not to donate more might be because the study didn’t establish a relationship between hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and water contamination in Carroll County and other areas that include the Utica Shale deposit.

Townsend-Small also said the results “show that fracking does not always lead to groundwater contamination, but that continuous monitoring is needed to ensure contamination has not occurred.”

“The left likes to continually talk about settled science, but often it’s settled on a predetermined outcome,” Nick Loris, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation who studies energy issues, told The Daily Signal. “Politicians use that predetermined outcome to justify policies that drive up the costs of affordable, reliable energy—even though those policies have little to no environmental benefit.”

The Daily Signal sought comment from the Deer Creek Foundation on why it decided to stop funding the fracking study in Ohio, but its executive director did not respond.

 

CO2 is a Benefit

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CO2 is a huge benefit to agriculture and nature.

It’s an undeniable fact that increasing CO2 increases plant growth. CO2 increases since 1985 have led to increased rainforest and crop growth, satellites show a 14 per cent increase in global greenery – fantastic news for nature and food security. Despite climate pessimists, global food prices remain low, with record yields achieved last year. Food prices would be even lower if the US ceased growing subsidised, inefficient “green” bioethanol crops. Extra production from rising “CO2 fertilisation” is equivalent to an extra 15 per cent land globally. This equals 35 times UK arable area, enough to feed the entire world their daily bread, worth over £100 billion yearly, plus the environmental benefit of increased growth in natural ecosystems. All down to a supposed “villain”.

Dr Keith P Dawson is vice President at the Scottish Society of Crop Research

Read more: The Scotsman

 

Methane Increase Caused By Agriculture and Not Fracking

Published on by sunshinehours11 Comment

“A new study published today in the journal Science shows that fossil fuels are not the cause of increasing levels of methane in the atmosphere, but rather from agriculture. The study, conducted by National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and led by Hinrich Schaefer, concludes that since 2007, the most likely cause of increased atmospheric methane comes from agricultural practices, and not from fracking or fossil fuel production.”

According to Schaefer, the NIWA team found they could distinguish three types of methane emissions. “One is the burning of organic material, such as forest fires,” he said. “Another is fossil fuel production – the same processes that form natural oil and gas – and the third is formed by microbes which come from a variety of sources such as wetlands, rice paddies and livestock.”

The team found that the “source of the increase was methane produced by bacteria, of which the most likely sources are natural, such as wetlands or agricultural, for example from rice paddies or livestock.” They were surprised to discover that fossil fuel production was not the source of the increased methane and ruled it out. They call the post-2006 rise in methane primarily microorganisms (biogenic), were coming from outside the Arctic, and were “more consistent with agriculture than wetlands.”

http://www.examiner.com/article/study-increased-methane-levels-from-agriculture-not-fossil-fuel-production

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