And nitrous oxide stays in the atmosphere a very long time before breaking down. It can take over a hundred years to break down one molecule of the gas. The main sources of nitrous oxide are synthetic nitrogen fertilizers and storage and use of livestock manure.
Start now
Davidson says farmers should be given incentives to use fertilizers and manure more judiciously.
“If we want to meet the most ambitious and optimistic goal of these scenarios of bringing harmful climate change under control, we need to improve the efficiency with which we use fertilizers in agriculture. We need to improve the efficiency of the management of manure. And we also need to consider changes in dietary patterns. And that means hopefully better diets in the developing world and better balanced diets in the developed world,” he said.
Even if it were possible to turn off all harmful greenhouse gas emissions today, he said climate change would continue.
“That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t start the mitigation now because the sooner we start it the more options our children and grandchildren will have in terms of being able to feed themselves and have prosperous lifestyles without environmental degradation,” he said.
Davidson’s findings appear in IOP Publishing’s
Environmental Research Letters.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25