Fertilizer worse than cars
It’s now fairly well known that about half of New Zealand’s carbon emissions come from our agricultural sector. Many who don’t want to face up to climate change use this as a convenient excuse: ‘well, you can’t really stop cows burping, it’s all natural, it’s not a problem that we need worry about’.Even were that true, according to the 2007 Environment Report about a third of those agricultural emissions are caused by:
nitrous oxide emissions… associated with the application of fertilizers, animal effluent deposited on agricultural soils and the use of nitrogen fixing crops.
These nitrous oxide emissions rose 27% between 1990, when New Zealand signed Kyoto, and 2005. They equate to 12.7 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent compared to all the road transport in New Zealand which equated to 12.6 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. The vast majority of that nitrogenous fertilizer is made from natural gas.
So something as simple as turning our over-fertilized industrial farms into diverse, low impact, organic farms could have had the same effect as removing nearly all cars from our roads. Not something that needs $700 million worth of research to work out, but worth doing nonetheless.
[ERRATUM]
Oops, it seems I misrepresented the Environment 2007 Report. As idiot/savant points in a comment below:
Sorry to piss on your parade, but you’re attributing all N2O to fertiliser, and that’s just incorrect. According to the 2007 Inventory Report, N2O emissions from agricultural soils were 12.7 MT Co2-equivalent, but only 1.76 MTCO2-e was “direct emissions from agricultural soils�. 7.56 MTCO2-e was from “animal production� (which means shit and piss from cows, sheep etc), and the remainder (3.38 MTCO2-e) was indirect emissions due to leaching and runoff. The nitrogen here is from both sources, fertilser and animals, but if the ratio is preserved,then around 20% of them - ~0.6 MTCO2-e - can be attributed to fertiliser.
What this tells us is that going organic won’t help, because organic cows still shit and piss. However, we do have cheap options to reduce these, in the form of changes in farm management practices and use of nitrification inhibitors (which work on nitrogen from any source). These are already cost-effective, and their use could reduce emissions by 3.7 MTCO2-e a year. The problem is that farmers won’t use them, because they do not have to pay for their emissions. That may change after 2013, but we need to step on this now, not in five years’ time.
Which means that all the stuff I said about comparisons to transport and organics does not hold water. Thanks I/S. I’ve said before that you keep the partisan bloggers among us honest.
However, I would still argue that well run healthy, polycultural organic farms are more likely to return nitrates from cow and sheep back into their farm’s life-cycle than large, monocultural, industrial dairy farms for instance. Which means massively less carbon equivalent emissions.
March 12th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
So why then does the Green Party overwhelmingly concentrate on vehicle emissions over fertilizer use?
Bryce
March 12th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Frog
What would the Green parties policy be re cars if zero emission vehicles became available?
The reason I ask is that I have always had the feeling that the Greens are anti cars full stop, I suspect the reason for this is that they see the death of the motor vehicle as one of the quickest and easiest ways to kill off capitalism.
March 12th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
lol
March 12th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Good point from Bryce though.
March 12th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Those points stink, it seems some people are anti green no matter what they are saying.
As for farm pollution I have always thought we need to charge farmers for the harmful substances which gets off their land, just as we pay for the good substances. Taking GST off organic fresh produce might be a simple way (less likely for farmers to complain and Helen to get scared).
March 12th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
BB asked: What would the Green parties policy be re cars if zero emission vehicles became available?
There would still be a congestion issue, and that can be addressed only by having the public transport infrastructure to move lots of people lots of places quickly.
The Greens are not anti-car - we’re pro-choice. The lack of public transport infrastructure in most places means people have no choice but to own and drive cars. Most Greens own cars, but try to not use them when there is a choice available. I’m quite unusual among Greens in choosing to not own a car, sometimes to my not insignificant inconvenience.
March 12th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Bryce said:So why then does the Green Party overwhelmingly concentrate on vehicle emissions over fertilizer use?
Do we? Hadn’t noticed, but if we do, at least frog is helping to put that right here.
March 12th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
eksatek said: Taking GST off organic fresh produce might be a simple way
The problem with this approach is that it vastly complicates the tax system. What about restaurants and foodbars where some of the produce used may be organic and other may not? Is there GST on your meal or not?
And do we want to take the GST off organic produce grown in the North America or Europe and air-freighted here, while charging GST on conventional produce grown here?
I’m a strong supporter of organics - just don’t think a GST exemption is a practical way of achieving greater organic food production.
March 12th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Hi all - just joined so thought I’d say hi. Yeah, Bryce is blinkered if he thinks the Greens haven’t actually been talking about overuse of fertilizers for like, ages.
I mean, Organics, hello??? Organics is all about low-impact and healthy agriculture - a key Green policy plank.
And the car thing is another no-brainer. Obviously if you could produce auto-mobiles with zero emissions that would be fantastic - but wouldn’t replace the need for public transport to be better integrated within NZ cities. Anyone tried to drive from Otahuhu to central Auckland at 9am recently? Duh!!??
If these comments really are just anti-Green rhetoric as ekstatek suggests then they need to get smart, and quick! But I reckon it’s just some Green Party activists trying to stir up a debate!! Lol
March 12th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
The other issue with fertiliser is it is taken from the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara, an area that was invaded by Morocco even after the Spanish agreed to make it an independent state. It is in a similar position to East Timor regarding Indonesian invasion after Portugal left.
A strong case can be made that Ballance is stealing the fertiliser from the Western Sahara people through not recognising their sovereignty.
March 12th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
ok fwwog, agwiculture is bad whether it cow or turnip,
produce good idea fwwog, tell john Key
March 12th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
peterquixote: fwwog, no more cow, no more car, no more coal - seem wot you say.
wish it were that easy, peterquixote - could ban coal easy, cow ‘n’ car part of kulcha tho - much harder. Ask BB!
March 12th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Cow and car here to stay. Longer than twendy lifestylee-ee “The Good Life” greenies, certainly…
March 12th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Sorry to piss on your parade, but you’re attributing all N2O to fertiliser, and that’s just incorrect. According to the 2007 Inventory Report, N2O emissions from agricultural soils were 12.7 MT Co2-equivalent, but only 1.76 MTCO2-e was “direct emissions from agricultural soils”. 7.56 MTCO2-e was from “animal production” (which means shit and piss from cows, sheep etc), and the remainder (3.38 MTCO2-e) was indirect emissions due to leaching and runoff. The nitrogen here is from both sources, fertilser and animals, but if the ratio is preserved,then around 20% of them - ~0.6 MTCO2-e - can be attributed to fertiliser.
What this tells us is that going organic won’t help, because organic cows still shit and piss. However, we do have cheap options to reduce these, in the form of changes in farm management practices and use of nitrification inhibitors (which work on nitrogen from any source). These are already cost-effective, and their use could reduce emissions by 3.7 MTCO2-e a year. The problem is that farmers won’t use them, because they do not have to pay for their emissions. That may change after 2013, but we need to step on this now, not in five years’ time.
March 13th, 2008 at 12:38 am
Aristophanes & toad, There are a couple of cheaper, cheerful and populist vote winning ways to solve urban congestion that don’t involve releases humungous tonnages of carbon from steel mills and cement works.
The simplest rebuttal to the assertion that “congestion can be addressed only by having the public transport infrastructure to move lots of people lots of places quickly” is to ask Aristophanes question with just one letter changed - “Anyone tried to drive from Otahuhu to central Auckland at 9pm recently? Duh!!??”
Ultimately the cause of congestion is the 9 to 5 workday and it’s coincidence with the start of the school day. Ultimately the solution must target the cause.
Begin by moving the high school start time back by one hour as recommended by sleep researchers.
Outlaw the 40 hour week. Replace it with the 72 hour fortnight. To be worked 6 hours 12 days or 12 hours 6 days or 8 hours 9 days or 9 hours 8 days.
OK so it would force employers to offer hours that better suit te modern lifestyle instead of living in the past, but would that be a bad thing?
March 13th, 2008 at 2:10 am
Going organic and continuing to farm meat would still save up to 1.76 megatonnes of CO2 equivilent, though, and going vegetarian could potentially save you all of those emissions.
While it’s hard to convince large numbers of farmers to change in that fashion, we should definitely encourage more farming diversity in New Zealand for that reason, and we should work on our filtering/capturing/whatever technologies, too. Sadly Fonterra actually makes this pretty difficult for us to do.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:15 am
Oops. Thanks I/S. I’ve written a retraction in the post above.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:55 am
However, I would still argue that well run healthy, polycultural organic farms are more likely to return nitrates from cow and sheep back into their farm’s life-cycle than large, monocultural, industrial dairy farms for instance. Which means massively less carbon equivalent emissions.
I wouldn’t quite say “massively”, but it would be large enough to make a difference, to be one of the wedges of sustainability we need. OTOH, we can get the same effect with very simple policy interventions. All we need is a government with the will and the political support to do it.
Unfortunately, policy is focused on the trivia - electricity, which makes up ~9% of our emissions - while ignoring the elephant (or rather, the giant, burping, pissing cow) in the room.
March 13th, 2008 at 9:42 am
With big increases in fertiliser prices, it looks like the market might kill off a chunk of NZ farming in any case.
http://www.fuelalternative.com.ua/eng/show_news.phtml?id=9668
March 13th, 2008 at 11:43 am
what, even growing lupins in my garden is bad now? & using animal dung as fertilizer?
i’m beginning to despair, it seems that no matter how hard we try to do the organic, recycly nature thing, we’re doomed to destroy this planet just by trying to live on it. what’s next, composting toilets will be found to be more harmful to the ecosystem than just flushing it untreated out to sea?
March 13th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
I/S,
Since you’re all in about keeping partisan bloggers honest - any chance of a retraction or disclaimer re. your holocaust claim? You claimed that an Israeli official used the world “holocaust” to refer to military action against Hamas:
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2008/03/so-much-for-never-again.html
… but the actual translation is “disaster”:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/530786/the-mother-of-all-mi stranslations.thtml
At best Reuters was guilty of an innocent mistranslation, at worst, anti-Israel propaganda. And yet, you report the original on your site & haven’t made any mention of the subsequent row over the translation.