Next Step After Carbon: Knowing Your Nitrogen Footprint
04 April 2011
Cattle at a farm near Jerome, Idaho. Researchers say animal protein is a big cause of nitrogen pollution in the United States.
This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
A carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide pollution that we produce as a result of our activities. Some people try to reduce their carbon footprint because they are concerned about climate change. Now, researchers have a way for people to measure how much nitrogen pollution they produce -- their nitrogen footprint.
All plants and animals need nitrogen. Nitrogen is a major element in the proteins in our bodies. The atmosphere is mostly nitrogen.
In the early twentieth century, scientists learned how to take nitrogen out of the air and make it into a form that plants could use. University of Virginia professor Jim Galloway calls synthetic nitrogen fertilizer a "wonderful invention" because it increased food production. But he says many parts of the world use too much nitrogen fertilizer, and that harms the environment.
JIM GALLOWAY: "It contributes to smog, acid rain, loss of biodiversity, dead zones along the coast, global warming, stratospheric ozone depletion. The list is quite long."
So Professor Galloway and other researchers have developed a nitrogen footprint calculator. This Web-based tool asks people about the foods they eat and questions like how much they fly and drive and how big a house they live in.
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