monitoring devices for regulating atmospheric nitrogen emissions from livestock and farms. Europeans passed the Gothenburg Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-Level Ozone in 1999, a pact signed by 49 countries, but the U.S. has dragged its feet. Schlesinger thinks that national arguments over climate change have allowed the U.S. to ignore the nitrogen problem, which he predicts will be the next big environmental issue. "It's another example of humans upsetting global biogeochemical cycles with unintended consequences," he says. Since Gothenburg, Europe has decreased its nitrogen emissions by a third, whereas U.S. emissions remain flat. And the U.S. has increased its ammonia emissions, an atmospheric component of the nitrogen problem, by 27 percent from 1970 to 2005, according to a 2009 paper in Environmental Science & Technology. Without intervention, the problem will likely worsen. With world population predicted to grow from 6.5 billion to nine billion by 2050, agriculture must feed more mouths, and that's probably going to require more nitrogen fertilizer, thereby resulting in more nitric acid rain and atmospheric pollution. The Integrated Nitrogen Committee's discusses inputs, flows and management options for reactive nitrogen in the U.S. environment. It also discusses ways to monitor atmospheric emissions, currently the weak link in the nitrogen control picture. It's clear that humans are adding nitrogen to Earth's surface. Researchers do not know yet where it all goes, "but we do know that increasing concentrations of nitrogen in unexpected places will cause significant environmental damage that we will all learn to regret," Schlesinger wrote in a 2009 report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Still, Aneja sees promise. Agriculture has adopted modern technologies and science to maximize productivity, but it has not yet been subjected to the same environmental regulations applied to other modern industries, he says. "The Integrated Nitrogen Committee report is an effort to develop more stringent measures," he adds, "and we're not ignoring the atmospheric contribution."
monitoring devices for regulating atmospheric nitrogen emissions from livestock and farms. Europeans passed the Gothenburg Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-Level Ozone in 1999, a pact signed by 49 countries, but the U.S. has dragged its feet. Schlesinger thinks that national arguments over climate change have allowed the U.S. to ignore the nitrogen problem, which he predicts will be the next big environmental issue. "It's another example of humans upsetting global biogeochemical cycles with unintended consequences," he says. Since Gothenburg, Europe has decreased its nitrogen emissions by a third, whereas U.S. emissions remain flat. And the U.S. has increased its ammonia emissions, an atmospheric component of the nitrogen problem, by 27 percent from 1970 to 2005, according to a 2009 paper in Environmental Science & Technology. Without intervention, the problem will likely worsen. With world population predicted to grow from 6.5 billion to nine billion by 2050, agriculture must feed more mouths, and that's probably going to require more nitrogen fertilizer, thereby resulting in more nitric acid rain and atmospheric pollution. The Integrated Nitrogen Committee's discusses inputs, flows and management options for reactive nitrogen in the U.S. environment. It also discusses ways to monitor atmospheric emissions, currently the weak link in the nitrogen control picture. It's clear that humans are adding nitrogen to Earth's surface. Researchers do not know yet where it all goes, "but we do know that increasing concentrations of nitrogen in unexpected places will cause significant environmental damage that we will all learn to regret," Schlesinger wrote in a 2009 report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Still, Aneja sees promise. Agriculture has adopted modern technologies and science to maximize productivity, but it has not yet been subjected to the same environmental regulations applied to other modern industries, he says. "The Integrated Nitrogen Committee report is an effort to develop more stringent measures," he adds, "and we're not ignoring the atmospheric contribution."
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