The Carbon Scare & The Nitrous Oxide Specter

MANILA: Today, Friday, the last day of September 2016, I read the omen that Brian Kahn has written in The Guardian about climate change, that "The world passes 400ppm carbon dioxide threshold. Permanently" (28 September 2016, theguardian.com):

In the centuries to come, history books will likely look back on September 2016 as a major milestone for the world’s climate. At a time when atmospheric carbon dioxide is usually at its minimum, the monthly value failed to drop below 400 parts per million (ppm). ¶ That all but ensures that 2016 will be the year that carbon dioxide officially passed the symbolic 400 ppm mark, never to return below it in our lifetimes, according to scientists.

Now, now Brian, that is completely off the mark. If climate change is here and we do not or cannot stop it, there will be no centuries to count anymore! In fact, no one will be around to write any history.

The BEC Crew puts it in the worst words, saying, "Earth's CO2 levels just crossed a really scary threshold – and it's permanent" (29 September 2016, Science Alert, sciencealert.com). The BEC Crew concludes that this is "A one-way ticket to the end of the world."

And that there is no chance we can escape our doom. Dominique Mosbergen quotes Gavin Schmidt, NASA's Chief Climate Scientist as saying, "If CO2 emissions... somehow plummeted to zero tomorrow, carbon dioxide levels (already in the atmosphere) wouldn't change much " (28 September 2016, huffingtonpost.com). Which of course is impossible because we are not going to stop tomorrow using energy that releases CO2.

That is why the BEC Crew is saying this breaching of the 400 ppm threshold set by climate scientists is "a one-way ticket to the end of the world."

Are we are helpless to stop our own doom because of climate change?

Not so fast! That deadly atmospheric carbon dioxide threshold of 400 ppm has been set by climate scientists who have been convinced that CO2 is the Devil himself when it comes to global warming. As a bookworm of science, I say yes. But I believe the Bigger Devil is nitrous oxide (N2O).

Since 2014, I have been writing about nitrous oxide, saying "Stop the nitrous oxide suicide!" (see my essay, 27 September 2014, "Alliance For Climate-Smart Agriculture. Next, Client-Smart Agriculture!" Primate Change, blogspot.co.id). I have been writing a series of essays on N2O as the major culprit gas in climate change and not CO2, and that methane (CH4) is even deadlier than CO2. Unfortunately, I have been shamed on Facebook by someone, never mind who; he knows who he is. But I'm a stubborn person; I love to argue and, if you insult me, I take it that you have run out of arguments! (Try my essay, "The Enemy Within: Nitrous Oxide, Not Carbon Dioxide!" 20 June 2016, Primate Change, blogspot.co.id.)

In other words, I did not find beauty in what he was saying and claiming. I'm not going to repeat him here, but I'm going to reopen this case and argue with new authority, even new evidence.

Let us examine the data generated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the global warming potential (GWP) units of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) in relation to CO2 (epa.gov):

CO2 has a GWP of 1. That is because it was made as the reference.
CH4 has a GWP of 28-36 times that of CO2.
N2O has a GWP of 265-298 units times that of CO2.

(To be consistent, with data I got elsewhere, I will continue using 24 units for CH4 and 300 units for N2O.)

I said this in my essay "Rodrigo Duterte Is Due For Primate Change" (06 July 2016, Primate Change, blogspot.co.id):

Take the case of Australia, which reports 85% of its greenhouse gas emissions as CO2; the report does not mention it, but if we assume that 0.5% of its emissions is N2O, half a percent, the effective GWP (e-GWP) of N2O is many times higher than that of CO2 despite its higher percentage, 85% vs 0.5%. Watch: 85% divided by 300 equals 0.25% as the e-GWP of CO2, while 0.5% times 300 equals 150% as the e-GWP of N2O! So, N2O is the deadlier of the species. (Effective global warming potential is a term that I coined because I needed it to write, for which see my essay, "The Enemy Within: Nitrous Oxide, Not Carbon Dioxide!" 20 June 2016, Primate Change, blogspot.co.id).

The pattern is the same; using now the actual data of greenhouse gas emissions from the United States, 1990-2014 figures (epa.gov): CO2 is 82%, methane (CH4) is 10%, N2O is 5%. Therefore, the e-GWP of CO2 equals 82% divided by 300, which gives us 0.27% (less than 1%); the e-GWP of N2O equals 5% multiplied by 300, which gives us an astounding 1,500%! Whatever its ppm in the troposphere, with its actual load N2O is deadlier than CO2.

So, the actual or effective global warming potential of nitrous oxide is very much higher than that of carbon dioxide; so we have been pointing to the wrong villain after all! N2O is the real specter of the greenhouse gases coming from agriculture. A bag of chemical N fertilizer should scare us from now on. The image above shows a urea fertilizer bag; urea contains 45% N, the other 55% being the carrier. It's not an innocent bag after all; it's spectral as I have posterized it.

In formula form, my computations proceed as follows:

The e-GWP of carbon dioxide equals actual amount emitted divided by 300 units.
The e-GWP of nitrous oxide equalsactual amount emitted multiplied by 300 units.

What can be clearer than that?

That means that 300 units of carbon dioxide is actually only 1 unit in terms of global warming, while 1 unit of nitrous oxide is actually 300 units in terms of global warming.

But, are my assumptions and computations correct?

Let us now turn to Zeke Hausfather who writes for Yale Climate Connections (of the Yale Center for Environmental Communication), about carbon dioxide equivalents; he writes simply (01 January 2009, "Common Climate Misconceptions," yaleclimateconnections.org):

One ton of methane would be equal to 25 tons of CO2-eq, because it has a global warming potential 25 times that of CO2.

Hausfather is stating it clearly; that is what I mean by e-GWP. If we substitute the figures, that would read like this:

One ton of nitrous oxide would be equal to 300 tons of CO2-eq, because it has a global warming potential 300 times that of CO2.

What are the implications of this "discovery" of mine? There are several, and they are not minor. If we want to stop global warming drastically, we must struggle to:

(1)     Stop N fertilizer applications.
We must stop hugely the widespread and profligate use of chemical nitrogenous fertilizers. The N forms include urea, ammonium chloride (N plus Cl), ammonium sulfate (N + S), ammophos (N + P), calcium nitrate (Ca + N), "complete fertilizer" or nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium (NPK), potassium nitrate (K + N), and sodium nitrate (Na + N) (agritech.tnau.ac.in).

When I googled for "urea images" (without the double quotes), I got 23,400,000 results. That indicates how widespread the use of urea is as fertilizer. The urea fertilizer in the above image was made in Qatar, sold by Alibaba.com. When farmers apply any N fertilizer on the field, about half of it is converted into nitrous oxide (N2O) by the process of nitrification and denitrification.

Richard Harris quotes Cindy Nevison of the University of Colorado as saying (28 August 2009, "Nitrous Oxide: A Necessary Evil Of Agriculture," NPR, npr.org): "... nitrous oxide is produced by microbes in the soil, and humans have greatly increased the amount of nitrogen available to these microbes." When we spread nitrogen fertilizer on the soil, we also feed those bacteria. And they produce more nitrous oxide. Bacteria in seawater also produce nitrous oxide when the fertilizer runs down the rivers and out to sea.

(2)     Find alternative sources of N for crops.
We must find sources of N other than chemical fertilizers in order not to disrupt food production. For instance Bio-Nof UP Los Baños is a bacteria-based fertilizer. Green manuring is also a viable alternative, as the legume crop enriches the soil with nitrogen. Also available alternatives are pure organic fertilizers.

(3)     Educate farmers on climate change.
We must educate the farmers and their advocates about the tremendous global warming effects of nitrogenous fertilizers and what they can do about it. This job belongs to the Department of Agriculture, which is pursuing Food Security initiatives for the nth year, which encourages chemical fertilization, which is Farmer's Practice. That is why I have blamed farmers for global warming. (See my essay, "I Blame The Farmers For Climate Change! 17 April 2016, Primate Change, blogspot.co.id).

(4)     Offer technology options.
We must come up with technology options that do not require chemical N fertilizer and yet give the farmers the yields they have been getting from chemical N, or even more. At the very least, we must reduce the use of N fertilizers such as with the practice of microdosing, a technology propagated by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) based in India. ICRISAT has found that a 3-finger pinch is enough chemical fertilizer per hill of a crop. We must explore this option now!

(5)     Revise aggie curricula to incorporate climate change.
We must incorporate at once in the curricula or courses in agriculture the global warming effects of N fertilizers and the alternatives that farmers have. Organic farming should also be studied in the classroom and in the field.

Now Showing: The Specter of Nitrous Oxide. The carbon dioxide alarm of 400 ppm doesn't scare me, I'm afraid.

01 October 2016. Essay word count, excluding this line: 1634