Food’s role in climate change has emerged as one of the defining challenges of our time. The journey of a steak, fruit or salad from the vast expanses of agricultural lands to the plates on our tables leaves a significant footprint on the environment.
After carbon dioxide and methane, N₂O is the most consequential greenhouse gas humans are releasing into the atmosphere. While there is less N₂O than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it is 300 times more powerful at warming the planet, and it remains in the atmosphere, holding in heat, for over a century. Today, atmospheric N₂O levels are about 25% higher than before the Industrial Revolution, and they’re still rising at an accelerating rate.
Food’s role in climate change has emerged as one of the defining challenges of our time. The journey of a steak, fruit or salad from the vast expanses of agricultural lands to the plates on our tables leaves a significant footprint on the environment.
After carbon dioxide and methane, N₂O is the most consequential greenhouse gas humans are releasing into the atmosphere. While there is less N₂O than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it is 300 times more powerful at warming the planet, and it remains in the atmosphere, holding in heat, for over a century. Today, atmospheric N₂O levels are about 25% higher than before the Industrial Revolution, and they’re still rising at an accelerating rate.
N₂O’s atmospheric concentration was fairly steady until the 1800s, when it began rising quickly. Measured in Antarctic ice cores (green) and through modern measurements (red).BoM/CSIRO/AAD
We found that, globally, fertilizers and the management of livestock manure are leading the increase in N₂O emissions and its rapid accumulation in the atmosphere. This is more than a climate problem. N₂O also depletes the ozone layer, which protects humans from harmful solar radiation. And nitrogen runoff from fields pollutes waterways, increasing harmful algal blooms and creating oxygen-depleted dead zones.
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Families in a South Dakota neighborhood are fearing for their safety as sinkholes have appeared around their homes in the area above an old underground mine