We might have been looking at Carbon for so long that we have forgotten that their are other 'villainous' greenhouse gases out there. And one of them is Nitrogen. It is not carbon alone which is playing its part in environmental evolution, though our fixation with the C-word would indicate otherwise.

Nitrogen is just as common as carbon, also present in all living organisms as an organic element of amino acids and thus of proteins, and of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA).  It is a founding element of almost all neurotransmitters and is a defining component of alkaloids, the biological molecules produced by many organisms.
Now, a growing number of researchers and environmental watchers are focusing on this element and its benign (and not so benign) effects on the environment. Every student who has opened a science textbook has heard about the nitrogen cycle. It is the process where unusable molecular nitrogen is converted to more organic forms through nitrogen fixation by plants. That’s the biological part. The largest use of nitrogen is for the production of ammonia. Large amounts of ammonia are then used to create fertilizers (and sometimes explosives!).

Stanford ecologist, Peter Vitousek in a 1994 essay put nitrogen on the environmental map. He co-authored a study this summer in the journal Nature that put greater attention on the nitrogen cycle and discouraged against ignoring it in favor of carbon.
“There’s a great danger in doing something like, oh, over fertilizing a cornfield to boost biofuel consumption, where the carbon benefits are far outweighed by the nitrogen damage. The nitrogen dilemma is not just thinking that carbon is all that matters. But also thinking that global warming is the only environmental issue. The weakening of biodiversity, the pollution of rivers, these are local issues that need local attention. Smog. Acid rain. Coasts. Forests. It’s all nitrogen.”
Nitrogen exists in far more toxic forms as proved by the journal Geophysical Research Letters. They signaled out nitrogen trifluoride as a 'missing greenhouse' gas. It is used in the production of semiconductors and in liquid-crystal displays found in many electronics. It is 17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide and is surprisingly not covered by the Kyoto Protocol. The journal says that its estimated worldwide release into the atmosphere this year is equivalent to the total global-warming emissions from Austria.

The role is nitrogen in all ecological cycles has been studied for long. Though a vital constituent of life, excess nitrogen in soil or water causes nature malfunctions such as eutrophication. It is unfortunately common to see artificial fertilizers applied to crop-lands resulting in run-off delivery of soluble nitrogen into oceans and water bodies. Nitrogen-driven bacterial growth depletes water oxygen to the point that all higher organisms suffocate and die.

Well-known water desserts in the world caused due to oxygen depletion include the U.S. Gulf Coast and the Black Sea. A recent such plague frustrated China on the eve of the Olympics when its Yellow Sea was smothered in algae at Qingdao, the planned site of Olympic sailing events this summer. Such dangers routinely threaten many coastal areas and riverside communities today because of use and abuse of artificial fertilizers.

Fertilizer use for the most part is inefficient. So says Nancy Rabalais, executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. With beef, only about 6 percent of nitrogen used in raising cows ends up in their meat; the rest gets released out into air or water supplies. With pork, it is 12 percent; chicken, 25 percent. Milk, eggs and grain have the highest efficiency, about 35 percent. This inefficient use is causing most of our problems.

Today, the biggest headache is how to deal with multiple problems at once, all of which are impacting the environment. Yes it time for rapid paradigm shifts and perhaps a multi-barreled approach towards all greenhouse gases.

Source: NY Times
Image: Flickr.com