The effects in the environment of the ‘massive amounts of nitrogen sent coursing through the planet’s ecosystems are growing fast.’ After the carbon fear, the planet will soon deal with the nitrogen fear, as some experts predict. The excessive use of fertilizer will soon turn the planet into a nitrogen-saturated mass.

‘Over the last century, the intensive use of chemical fertilizers has saturated the Earth’s soils, waters, and atmosphere with nitrogen. Now scientists are warning that we must move quickly to revolutionize agricultural systems and greatly reduce the amount of nitrogen we put into the planet’s ecosystems.’

Artificial nitrogen is as ubiquitous in water as man-made carbon dioxide is in the air, making the nitrogen cycle ‘one of the three planetary boundaries that human interventions have disturbed so badly that they threaten the future habitability of the Earth.’ The other two are climate change and biodiversity loss.

Nitrogen has been continually accumulating in the world’s rivers and underground water reserves. It chokes waterways with algae, ‘making water reserves unfit to drink without expensive clean-up. Most of the man-made nitrogen fertilizer ever produced has been applied to fields in the last quarter-century.’ A large part of excess nitrogen eventually washes into the oceans where it kills whole ecosystems. ‘Excess nitrogen is the cause of the growing number of oxygen-depleted “dead zones” in the oceans.’

According to James Galloway of the University of Virginia, “In the worst-case scenario, we will move towards a nitrogen-saturated planet, with polluted and reduced biodiversity, increased human health risks and an even more perturbed greenhouse gas balance.”

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Via environment360