Next week
Tuesday we will discuss material from chapters 11 and 15. The only model we will use is the fisheries biology one. Do not worry about all the other graphs.
For Thursday, please read these papers to inform our discussion:
http://e360.yale.edu/features/can-the-world-find-solutions-to-the-nitrogen-pollution-crisis
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21708.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Susana_Perera-Valderrama/publication/320190902_Marine_protected_areas_in_Cuba/links/59d54e2da6fdcc87469564ce/Marine-protected-areas-in-Cuba.pdf
For your blog post - pick something from one or more of these articles that you would like to discuss in class.
For Thursday, please read these papers to inform our discussion:
http://e360.yale.edu/features/can-the-world-find-solutions-to-the-nitrogen-pollution-crisis
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21708.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Susana_Perera-Valderrama/publication/320190902_Marine_protected_areas_in_Cuba/links/59d54e2da6fdcc87469564ce/Marine-protected-areas-in-Cuba.pdf
For your blog post - pick something from one or more of these articles that you would like to discuss in class.
One of the most difficult issues within the realm of sustainable development is conservation of natural resources: you have a poor developing country that has a limited supply of valuable natural resources--these resources can be harvested and sold on a large scale in the short term and support the country's development, or they can be harvested in a way that will benefit the country less in the short run, but ensure that they can continue profiting off of these resources in the future.
ReplyDeleteI think it is fascinating how a country like Cuba has done so much to conserve their natural amenities as they continue to develop. When most of us think about Cuba, we see images of an impoverished country with poor infrastructure and an oppressive government; such a place would not immediately strike most as a world leader in conservation. Cuba is proving that the immediate financial gains that unregulated extraction of natural resources offers, no matter how lucrative, are not the best course of action when thinking about the long term. Hopefully other developing countries follow Cuba's lead.
I found the nitrogen article particularly interesting as it presents an issue I did not really know existed. Although I knew that nitrogen was a key ingredient in most commercial fertilizers, the idea that nitrogen was creating environmental issues came at a surprise. I think the article makes an interesting point that is it even possible to produce food for a world of over nine billion people without this nitrogen issue? The author does not comment on the feasibility of say the United States being 75% efficient in fertilizer use. As we have learned, with technological innovation and dynamic pricing this should be accomplish-able. Although they provide a good argument via the idea that various countries will need to become much more efficient with their nitrogen use, the broader question still exists. Is there a point where the world can simply not support its entire population?
ReplyDeletePete, you raise a number of interesting points that also struck me while reading the nitrogen article. Likewise, I was not aware of the extent of the problem. The article reports that China and India, among other South Asian countries, are disproportionately contributing to the problem. As the authors note, the population demands in those countries are immense in comparison to our own. But they don’t bother addressing the question of whether two countries with populations well over a billion could even produce enough food without emitting large amounts of nitrogen. This is key in my opinion. As we have discussed in class, China has a fairly poor record as it concerns sustainable development. However, the Chinese have also made improvements to quality of life on a scale that, 100 years ago, would have been inconceivable, and to this day remain unprecedented. In theory, it is fairly clear that sufficient reductions to nitrogen emissions can be made without comprising the world food supply. Nonetheless, as you yourself suggest, it is not obvious that this can actually be done in practice.
DeleteThe Yale Environment 360 article on nitrogen pollution made me think about a few things. The author points out that raising the price of fertilizer could be a problematic solution to this problem, as it essentially would cause starvation in countries like Africa where crop yields are already low. I would think a tax on fertilizer use would have a similar effect. The article then mentions technical solutions that have the goal of increasing the efficiency of fertilizer applications. My question is, how can we fund the research, innovation, and technology needed for this approach? Do we know how much these policies will cost or if the ones already in practice are having a significant effect? It seems to me that some of the 60 million dollars spent on the International Nitrogen Management System research project would have been better expended elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThis article brought to light the lack of public awareness around nitrogen abuse. Despite the fearful tone of terms used to describe nitrogen effects, such as "dead oceans" and "lifeless rivers," there is a disproportional lack of fear surrounded with the term nitrogen pollution (from my understanding W&L students are less familiar with the causes/effects of nitrogen pollution than carbon pollution). This translates into a lack of environmental policy and support from an international level.
ReplyDeleteIt may be people find visualizing nitrogen use issues more challenging as opposed to deforestation or climate change. Climate change can be visualized via images of melting icebergs and deforestation with pictures of entire missing sections of forest. These images are all over news shows and magazine covers. But exposure to images of algal blooms are less common and really doesn't look too frightening. In fact, they look quite beautiful. The article sites poisoned underwater water reserves as another pressing issue, but these too are out of sight of the common person. Out of sight, out of mind, right? The article mentions the popular understanding of one's own carbon footprint versus nitrogen footprint. Popularizing this term and placing it alongside dialogue of carbon footprint would be a step in the right direction.
On the side of policy, today in class, prof Casey mentioned block pricing as a potential method of combatting high water usage. If the low cost of fertilizer is the main component propelling overusage, raising it incrementally (maybe based on acreage) could be a solution. In theory, the diminishing returns on fertilizer make this approach efficient and cost-effective. I agree this approach isn't one-size-fits all and developed countries shouldn't have the authority to suggest or mandate above-average nitrogen usage from other countries struggling to feed their populations.
I agree with Kaitlyn that this was a really interesting article because it focused on Nitrogen pollution rather than carbon pollution. I personally did not understand that Nitrogen pollution was a huge problem internationally and that the externalities were so serious. A while back, I watched a documentary on GMOs and Monsanto, a huge agricultural company, was mentioned multiple times. They have genetically modified crops to resist certain chemicals that kill pests, and as a result they can dump a ton of fertilizer on crops, killing all the pests and not harming the crops. As agricultural technology like this develops around the world, more and more fertilizer is being used to produce more and more food, I can see how this problem would be worsening. I really want to know more bout how agricultural policy in the US is leading to this problem, especially since the agricultural industry is one of the most heavily subsidized. Some countries around the world more closely regulate GMOs and conventional farming. What do bodies of water near those counties look like? Would lowering subsidies help with the nitrogen footprint? I imagine farmers would argue a decrease in subsidies would prevent them from "feeding the country." Is it possible we are actually overproducing food and could decrease food production, therefore decreasing fertilizer use? I know food waste is a huge issue as well.
DeleteThere was a lot of compelling information in the two articles on MPAs. The efficacy concern posed by the International Journal of Science highlighted well the difficulty in asking tough ecological questions. The article says “Effective assessment of MPA impact necessitates the isolation of response to protection (MPA treatment) from other confounding factors.” It is good for the authors to explicitly state this, but they never discuss what they mean by “MPA impact.” I wondered as I read that, “impact on what?” Earlier in the paper they acknowledge, quite honestly and frankly, that there really is no sufficient data that illumines the trade-offs of different conservation efforts. I might be missing something, but those two statements don’t seem to line up. How can you judge the impact of MPAs in your conclusion when you note earlier that you lack the data to “assess these impacts globally?” Obviously it is helpful to know that there is a need for these kinds of data, but at the same time I think the authors could have done a better job discussing what they meant by “MPA impact.”
ReplyDeleteI was most interested in this discussion relating to the challenges Cuban MPAs face. It came as a surprise to me to see such impressive conservation efforts in Cuba due to its government structure. However, it is just as easy to pass an effective conservation policy as it is to attempt to control the economic setup in an authoritarian state. As we see a steep increase in tourism activities, there will certainly be a conflict between conservation and the economic needs of a deeply impoverished country. Already there is a lack of reinvestments into the MPAs from tourism activities, and an overall lack of investments in enforcement. Cuba is in a unique position as it has been able to maintain much of the integrity of its natural resources, but it now at a crossroads between the traditional route of overburdening its ecosystems in pursuit of economic wellbeing, or it can create its own path based on the principles of sustainable development. The increased collaboration between scientists in Cuba and the US does create an optimistic situation for the overall progress of wellbeing in Cuba. I would be interested in discussing specific arguments an economists would use to a policymaker over the best practices for dealing with the increase in tourism and the effects on the natural environment.
ReplyDeletePrior to reading the Nitrogen Pollution article I had known that fertilizer runoff was a problem. However, I was unaware of the sheer inefficiency of the world's use of fertilizer. The fact that even the most efficient countries waste 30% is shocking. One concern the authors raised about a potential tax was that it would harm food scarce places such as Africa. However, this tax does not have to be, and in fact almost certainly wouldn't be, a global tax. A tax in countries such as the U.S., E.U., and China would help to reduce fertilizer use and spur innovation in efficiency and alternative methods. A cap and trade system also seems like it could be effective here. The number of acres of farmland is readily available, so the government could determine the efficient amount of fertilizer per acre and issue the corresponding number of permits. These permits could then be traded to maximize efficiency. Farms with higher degrees of technology, could implement the more efficient methods described in the article and sell their excess permits to less technically advanced farms. This system would also incentivize companies to develop new crop strains that require less fertilizer.
ReplyDeleteThe Yale 360 article primarily focuses on nitrogen pollution from crop fertilizers. Livestock manure also contributes to nitrogen pollution and because these livestock are fed the crops that receive excessive nitrogen, this article made me wonder about the proportion of how each country’s crops are used.
ReplyDeleteFor example, India has a low nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) but nearly one-third of its population is vegetarian. In contrast, the U.S has a higher NUE but significantly higher production and consumption of livestock. This is a simplification because countries import and export food so a country’s total nitrogen footprint extends beyond what is grown in their country, but it does help show that NUE should not be the sole determinant in policy making.
The members of the International Nitrogen Management System discussed setting nitrogen usage and efficiency standards. However, would a country’s relatively low NUE be more justifiable/acceptable if the majority of its crops are directly for human consumption and not to livestock, which would increase nitrogen pollution?
Addressing nitrogen from fertilizer use would most likely make the biggest impact in reducing pollution, but it would still be important to examine reduction initiatives beyond this point of use.
In Fred Pearce’s article, he talks about how farmers around the world have done very well to feed the world’s population. However, this has come at a great cost. Is it possible that the global population has already passed its maximum capacity? Scientists have genetically engineered crops to grow in unnatural regions and have obviously been utilizing ridiculous amounts of synthetic fertilizers to support growth. If we have already surpassed the maximum population for earth to support us, how do we go about reducing the global population? Pearce also talks about bioengineers modifying plants to utilize nitrogen fixation mechanisms similar to legumes and even cyanobacteria that causes the algal blooms in hypoxic zones. If this modification is possible, would it be possible to genetically engineer the currently no-edible and often poisonous cyanobacteria that leads to hypoxia to be edible and allow for humans to harvest the algae for food?
ReplyDeleteI found it surprising that the UN has yet to address the nitrogen issue, and that it doesn't get the same attention from the public that climate change does. Perhaps it doesn't seem like it's as big of an issue as climate change, and one could make the argument that in some ways it's a necessary evil because of the number of mouths to feed around the world, but according to article it has potential to cause large scale problems. The biggest issue associated with the excess nitrogen is the creation of dead zones. These turn the nitrogen issue into a kind of catch-22: if we cut back on fertilizer use then we may not be able to produce enough food to feed the world, but on the other hand if we don't cut back on fertilizer use then the increase in dead zones may cause many people to go hungry by impacting the fish population. I'm curious to see how the UN handles this issue in the future, and how they decide to balance the necessity for food and the necessity to save ecosystems.
ReplyDeleteI feel like either a block pricing or limited entry technique policy would work really well in the context of the nitrogen issue. For limited entry: if we're able to fix the supply curve, then we should be able to reach the NUE goals specified in the article. The counter to this is if that supply curve will be able to feed everyone. However, because those with the lowest marginal costs get the ITQs, they will be the ones most able to sustainably and efficiently use Nitrogen fertilizers. How this would be implemented I'm not totally sure. The article discusses putting every continent on an equal playing field, but that seems unrealistic and unwise. I'm not sure how to scale how many ITQs each country gets and for how much. Whether that should be population size, land area, farm area, etc. I am also not sure. If the UN could come to an agreement on how to allocate these ITQs within countries, and enforce it, I don't see why this wouldn't be part of an effective solution.
ReplyDeleteWhile fertilizers are necessary to a country’s mass food production, nitrogen pollution is a class example of a negative externality. The main problem associated with fertilizer runoff is eutrophication, which is when excess nutrients in the water cause algal blooms. This depletes oxygen for marine life, blocks sunlight for marine plants, and produces toxins in the water. The social costs associated with excess fertilizer then include a decrease in fish population for commercial fisheries and a direct affect to human health. Excess use of fertilizer comes with social costs that are not being internalized, reflecting that the price is too low. While reading the Yale-360 paper, it seemed like a simple solution, at least in higher income countries, would be to propose a tax. I was surprised by the dismissal of a tax in the article. I agree that this is not a viable option for lower income counties, but why is it not being implemented in more developed nations? Improving technologies is preferred, but at least a tax is an immediate solution to increasing Nitrogen Use Efficiencies.
ReplyDeleteWhen I initially read this article ("Can the World Find Solutions to the Nitrogen Pollution Crisis?") I thought that perhaps it was outdated, there was no way that the world farmers were using Nitrogen at a rate less than fifty percent. Alas, it was written earlier this month. I truly enjoyed this piece, as it informed me about the true Nitrogen crisis that the world is currently experiencing. As I got deeper into the article the economic ties behind not only the Nitrogen crisis but the other three environmental crisis became very apparent to me. I found the Kuznet Theory about how newly developing countries are initially more inefficient with their natural resources use and then as they begin to realize the negative externalities the begin to invest in more efficient policies. This theory intuitively made sense to me, and as the article began to reveal the specific Nitrogen inefficiencies of each country the theory held true. One problem that I have with the suggested efficiency levels that the author provides is that they seem to almost take Africa’s current economic state for granted in hoping to keep them above 70%. Yes I hope that this is possible for the sake of the world’s future, but I also hope that this is not at Africa’s expense.
ReplyDeleteIt was very interesting to read about the tradeoff between over fertilization and excessive nitrogen pollution. It seems like farmers can over fertilize their crops and yield high levels of output or they can choose to fertilize modestly, yield lower output, and potentially lose to their competition. For farmers, there doesn’t appear to be any incentive to reduce their nitrogen emissions. Furthermore, a reduction in fertilizer that reduces crop output would lead to less food for the world. While nitrogen pollution is clearly a harmful byproduct of food production, does the social cost of this pollution outweigh the social benefit gained from feeding people around the world? I think it would be really interesting to apply our valuation methods to these two alternatives and to see if it’s possible to find equilibrium amounts of nitrogen pollution and crops produced.
ReplyDeleteFrom my gathering on the two MPA article’s it appears that bodies and dollars are two of the most important factors in the ability to impact marine areas. Much like Sam, I was surprised at how well Cuba has done in terms of conservation for a country with plenty of other issues at hand. It’s necessary to evaluate the success of each program along with the region that is under examination. Community support seemed to be a successful element of Cuban MPA programs and should serve as an example for other countries in the Caribbean. One interesting point that was brought up is related to the effects of tourism, and what would happen if tourist visits increased rapidly. A country with desires to advance its economy has the choice to protect or utilize its natural resources with regard to tourism. Visitors from other countries don’t want to look at the corals hundreds of feet away from the shore, they want to get in a boat and snorkel right on top of the reef. I see how a resource may be exploited if there is a demand, especially in a developing country. How Cuba will regulate the externalities of tourism is the question, and that is tied to the manpower and financial resources available to ensure conservation.
ReplyDeleteI found the Yale 360 Article very interesting because of how it very clearly stated the problem of nitrogen pollution with facts and data but still made it very easy to understand the problem. Through out this paper, I also noticed a lot of facts about the past, current, and future problems of nitrogen pollution that made me realize just how little I knew about this very important issue. The thing that I want to discuss in class is the last part of the paper where solutions are explored. The article shows multiple different ideas that I think would be interesting to discus in class in terms of pros and cons, but something that I think is very import to keep in mind is the fact that “An average American has a nitrogen footprint of about 41 kilograms a year, compared to 24 kilograms for an average person in the Netherlands.” This points at the important fact that while it is important to look at the problem in many third world countries, The United States has a long way to go in terms of halving the nitrogen waste by 2050.
ReplyDeleteI consider myself pretty up to date on the various environmental problems occurring in the world, but before reading this article I had no idea how bad the nitrogen problem is. It makes sense from an economics standpoint that if fertilizer isn't priced to include the relevant public social costs then farmers would over use it in growing their crops. I think the idea of a major price hike would fix a lot of that problem, but that approach does leave open the morally questionable element of there are already so many people starving in the world and now we're going to make it harder to produce food? It's easy to say in the U.S. that I'm okay with hiking up the price of fertilizer but I'm not sure what the solution is in developing countries. I think a Paris climate agreement type deal like the authors mentioned might be a good idea? It may not be as effective as one would hope, but that article made it clear that something needs to be done and soon.
ReplyDeleteThe article on Cuba's MPA's left me with more questions than answers. I recognize that the point of the article was only to talk about Cuba specifically but I'd like to know more about how Cuba's situation fits into the global context. Do they have more MPA's as a ratio of total aquatic area than other Caribbean countries? Is their focus on creating these MPA's substantial greater than other similar countries? If yes is this because the country was so closed off for so long that they missed the wave of "we don't know better" costal development so are now trying to catch up but sustainably?
I found the Yale 360 article particularly interesting. Like many above I was surprised by the enormity of the issue of excess nitrogen in the environment and was essentially unaware of this problem previous to reading the article. Similar to Peter's comment, I wonder how feasible and efficacious the solutions the authors propose really are. Particular their suggestion of reallocation of food production to areas that more efficiently use nitrogen. I didn't think it was clearly articulated whether certain parts of the world were more efficient because of geophysical characteristics (such as soil composition) or farmers' practices. I understand if some regions are just physically more efficient it makes sense in theory to reallocate food production there but if its the way farmers are using the fertilizer that is the issue then maybe we could just train farmers in parts of the world where they are using poor practices to use it more efficiently. The issue with simply reallocating food production is that, yes, the same amount of food is being produced, but those who have their farming taken away are now without jobs and income. There may still be food available to them but they cannot purchase it. Additionally, perhaps it is more sustainable to produce crops close to where they are consumed (farmed by a Chinese farmer and consumed by a Chinese citizen rather than farmed by a Ukrainian farmer and consumed by a Chinese citizen). I think these issues will need to be addressed in the process of decreasing the amount of nitrogen in the environment.
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ReplyDeleteI found the article on Nitrogen particularly interesting. I was definitely aware of the other three “planetary boundaries”: climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity loss. But I completely ignored nitrogen pollution. This issue brings particular attention to me, given that Argentina’s main economic driver is agriculture, and that this practice is what is causing about two-thirds of global nitrogen pollution. I would be interested to see what the nitrogen demand and nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE) is in Argentina. While we are probably not even remotely close to the China’s consumption, NUE is probably equally as bad. As the author mentions, in developing countries NUE tends to be a lot smaller than in developed ones, since fertilizers are heavily subsidized and they do not invest in more efficient ways to use fertilizer. The main point I take from this article is that the entire issue could be solved by improving NUE. This is not a situation of “lets consume less”, but instead a “lets consume in a smarter way” situation. In a world where we are using technology for everything, why not use algorithm and GPS-guided equipment to make agriculture more precise?
ReplyDeleteI was really intrigued by the article on nitrogen in particular. Though I think MPA's are interesting and I would like to continue to learn about them, I had a little more background thanks to Professor Kahn's intro to environmental studies class (caveat: that was two years ago now). On the other hand, I don't know a lot about nitrogen, nor was I actively aware that its as large a problem as it appears to be. There was one part that I would like to discuss more because I don't think I've heard the phrase before: planetary boundaries. I know this does not just include nitrogen levels and is probably a very broad topic, but I am really interested in learning more about them. The author briefly lists all four, but I would like to know what kinds of boundaries these are. Are they made of goals for us to achieve (like cutting nitrogen usage in half?) or are they levels of pollution, biodiversity loss, etc. that we physically cannot pass before things get very very bad?
ReplyDeleteI would also like to delve deeper into some of the solutions and theories behind the nitrogen article. What makes a field a place "with optimum nitrogen-use efficiency"? How do we help get people to farm there? How applicable are the two ways presented to improve efficiency (the low-tech and the high-tech)?
As mentioned in the article, most farmers in China and India take advantage of the subsidized fertilizer prices and end up putting twice as much nitrogen onto their field as their European counterparts. Because of this, it makes sense to increase the prices of fertilizers in order to discourage over-fertilizing. As we know, this will end up mostly harming farmers in developing countries. A better approach to this problem would be to educate the farmers about how the use of fertilizers is subject to the law of diminishing marginal returns. In other words, pouring extra fertilizer would only help grow more crop to a certain extent. Once that maximum amount is reached, the marginal utility from additional fertilizer starts declining. In that case, fertilizers are causing more harm than good. A sentence that caught my attention was that farmers usually 'make judgment about how much more fertilizer is worth pouring based on economic rather than ecological reasons'. However, ecological reasons are also economic reasons. Just because we are not always able to put a price on the ecological reasons, does not mean we should not take it into consideration. In fact, ecological reasons are way more important than the economic ones and should be considered first because whatever damage we cause to the environment is irreversible! That being said, a more realistic way of discouraging over-fertilizing is to educate farmers about the all its harmful effects such as damaging ecosystems and poisoning underground water reserves which, in turn, could potentially make their cost of acquiring clean water even higher.
ReplyDeleteSide note: While reading this article, I was curious to see what fertilizer use is like in Morocco since a big part of the country's economy relies on agriculture. I found out that overall fertilizer use in Morocco is pretty low. On the other hand, the share of increase in nitrogen fertilizer consumption is expected to be around 2.5%, mainly in Egypt and Morocco (http://www.fao.org/3/a-i4324e.pdf).
Also, I somehow found myself reading this article about phosphate and thought it was relevant to our discussion: http://e360.yale.edu/features/phosphate_a_critical_resource_misused_and_now_running_out
Fun fact: Morocco is the world's second largest producer of phosphate.
I had heard about fertilizer runoff as being a problem, but never realized the full extent of it. The Yale 360 article emphasized just how big of an issue this is. Agriculture is responsible for 2/3 of the global nitrogen pollution and the amount of biomass being suffocated from that nitrogen is astonishing. The problem is that more than half of the nitrogen being poured on the fields is even being absorbed by the plants, which means that there needs to be some technology developed for the efficiency of nitrogen to be absorbed into the plant increased and not result in mass amounts of runoff. It came as a surprise to me however, that farmers are not even sure how much they should be putting on their crops; and due to the fact that it has become so cheap, farmers will just throw as much on there as they think. I do agree that every nation should be given a nitrogen use efficiency target. I wonder if that would give rise to increases in technology.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who is interested and involved in agricultural practices, I found the Nitrogen Pollution Crisis article most fascinating. I have done multiple projects on hypoxia, but mostly in relation to livestock. I'm well aware that I am by no means an expert on the subject, but I was surprised that animal manure isn't as big of a problem as synthetic nitrogen. The fact that there are 2x the amount of synthetic nitrogen than there is from organic sources was extremely surprising to me. I am surprised that the article did not mention land-use practices. A way to decrease the concentration of nitrogen in the waterways is by decreasing land degradation. The healthier the soil, the more it will absorb, so there won't be so much fertilizer run-off flowing into the streams. I would like to talk about that in class. The article discussed "precision agriculture" as being a solution that involves algorithms and analysis and pinpoint accuracy, but I don't think it needs to be nearly this complicated or calculated. Simple crop rotation, crop diversification, and less tilling of the land will maintain better soil quality. Why are these not suggested solutions?
ReplyDeleteThough I’m fairly familiar with efficacy assessments as they relate to for-profit companies, the realm of nonprofits is largely unfamiliar to me. For that reason, I appreciated the way the authors of the MPA articles framed the importance of their work. It’s one thing for the state to provide initial support for MPAs, but what comes next? And if it seems their investment wasn’t worth its return to the environment, why should they offer their support in the future? The global study of MPAs offered a potential answer: an MPAs success depends is related not only to its location and starting capital, but the system of management and enforcement required for its upkeep. We can see, then, how investments in defined aspects of struggling MPAs could radically alter they’re returns to investment.
ReplyDeleteOne question came to mind: How do issues of management and staffing affect MPAs in practice? Is it an issue of upkeep? Illegal fishing/pollution?
Several of my classmates have brought up the question of how feasible it is to reduce nitrogen runoff at current population levels. The principle issue seems to lie in rapidly growing nations in Southeast Asia and the behemoth that is China. Conventional models seemed to be confounded by the sheer size of these populations. It seems that the tradeoffs between increasing agricultural output and preserving fisheries should eventually temper the use of nitrogen in places like China. The size of the population dependent on agricultural output is much larger when compared to the size of the population dependent on fisheries I would imagine, creating more demand for nitrogen fertilizers at the cost of preserved fisheries. However, in the Chinese case, the size of this smaller fishery-dependent population is most likely still a massive number which could create significant societal burdens should fisheries fail due to nitrogen runoff. As always with China, the sheer size of its population complicates traditional models and makes clear policy decisions difficult to uncover.
ReplyDeleteFred Pearce's piece on the nitrogen pollution crisis pointed to an interesting moral debate between the obligation expanding poor countries have toward environmental consciousness. So much of the "1st World" countries' progress has come at the expense of the environment. The rabid and cheap use of natural resources without regard to environmental concerns in order to cheaply industrialize has thus far been the model for establishing a modern economy. What compels developing countries to follow a more cost-prohibitive model and stunt or limit their own growth? Why should the "1st world" be allowed to continue expanding their head start which was fueled by natural-resources? How can the rest of the world impart environmental restrictions when an entire continent is learning out to feed itself? How would you even begin to assign economic values to the variables in that decision? The good news as the article mentions is that countries that have experienced rebounds in their crop yields from the lows of the 80s and are experiencing better NUE has the opportunity to share that technology and grow a more efficient agriculture model. The only issue from that point is widespread adoption and implementation, which unfortunately breaks down to a policy issue...
ReplyDeleteI found the nitrogen piece to be particularly illuminating on the overusage of nitrogen fertilizers - a tremendous and growing problem around the world. The use of nitrogen fertilizers in farming has been a revelation for yields but has resulted in algal blooms developing and killing scores of fish via nitrogen deprivation. The biggest culprit in this whole debacle is the inefficiency with which people pour nitrogen onto their crops. Pouring more nitrogen onto a field results in tremendous yields. The world has taken notice of this effect and the popularity of nitrogen fertilizers has improved dramatically everywhere. India and China in particular have been singled out and criticized for being very inefficient in their usage of nitrogen fertilizers. How can we possibly incentivize India or China to behave any differently when 1) they have seen how successful yields have been for the Europe and the US and 2) they have billions of people to feed right now. This issue reminds me of Solow's piece on conservation, which touched on the moral dilemma of conserving for the future while caring for people in the present. Solow skirted around discussion of global population size in his article with good reason: everyone knows that if Earth supported fewer people we wouldn't need to discuss nearly as many environmental issues. However, one has to wonder if the creation of yield-enhancing fertilizers to support larger and large populations now will allow us to leave the world as capable of supporting human life in 30-50 years. We have to support the people who reside on Earth in the present, but must find a way to do so in a more efficient manner. I think the idea of encouraging minimum efficiency levels on the world's continents is a really good and achievable idea. It may result in higher commodity prices but this hardly seems like a huge deal when weighed up against the calamitous environmental effects of inefficienct nitrogen consumption.
ReplyDeleteA common thread I found myself pondering throughout all of the assigned readings this week is the question of credibility. I feel in the environmental and natural resource literature where one economist or scientist can find robust results on one topic, another can come and prove the exact opposite. Motive and bias most likely plays a factor into a lot of the counter-studies. The wealth of conflicting information available to the public harms the more legitimized studies and makes consumers question and doubt every study published. Though all the readings this week come from accredited and highly respected sources, I still found myself wondering whether there were studies out there claiming the exact opposite. And who is believing which?
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