From the comment streams and emails I’ve been getting about recent posts, it is clear that many people believe things that are not actually true about the environmental profile of organic fertilizers.  I don’t mean to minimize the challenge we face when it comes to fertilizers, particularly nitrogen fertilizers.  They take energy to make, have the potential to generate the potent greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide, and can lead to the pollution of ground and surface waters.  With a “rap-sheet” like that I understand why people are concerned, but there is a catch - without fertilizers we don’t eat much.

Still, there is a widespread belief that “Organic” fertilizers are the solution.  I’ve already blogged about why organic fertilizers are dramatically worse from a greenhouse gas point of view.  Today I want to talk about the water pollution issues and why “Organic” fertilizers are actually a much worse problem from that perspective as well.

Why Nitrogen Fertilizers Can Pollute

The reason that ALL nitrogen fertilizers (synthetic and Organic) are a water pollution threat is that they at some point convert to the nitrate ion (NO3-).  That particular form of nitrogen is very water soluble so the nitrate can move down into ground water or sideways into surface water.  The “Dead Zone” or “Hypoxia zone” in the Gulf of Mexico is driven in some large part by nitrate coming from farms.   There are ways to manage this issue, but first I need to talk about the fundemental challenge of crop fertilization.

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My earlier blog about greenhouse gas emissions from composting generated a lot of good discussion so I am writing to respond.

• Yes, composting is certainly better than some outcomes like food scraps going into a garbage dump which does not do anything to capture the methane

• Yes, an anaerobic digester would be a very good thing to use for most waste streams.  A recent example is what was done at Gill’s Onions

• Many wastes can also be put through a fast-pyrolysis process to form syngas and biochar.  This is another way to get at the carbon-neutral energy that is in the manure or other waste

• Greenhouse gas emissions are not the only metric that matters as was pointed out, but manures in particular are undesirable fertilizers based on multiple other metrics as well: tendency to leach more nitrates because of extended release, more nitrous oxide emissions for the same reason, and excess levels of phosphorus relative to nitrogen leading to water pollution

• Compost is indeed a very good way to build soil carbon and that is a super important thing to do for true sustainable farming, but there are other ways to accomplish that that don’t have the greenhouse gas issues.  One is the use of biochar.  The other is to practice no-till farming and grow cover crops which I describe in another post.

• There may be ways of composting that don’t emit as much methane, but I’ve seen far more theoretical arguments that way with no actual measurements taken.  As a microbiologist I have a hard time imagining how you could avoid having some anaerobic conditions in a big pile of manure.  Starting from 14 times as much carbon equivalents as synthetic nitrogen, the process would have to be vastly improved to be acceptable

• Un-composted manure has similar drawbacks as a fertilizer.  When it is stored for later use on a farm, at least 1-2 percent of its total methane potential gets released even with very good manure management practices

• Chicken manure is more attractive to farmers as a nitrogen source because the levels are higher, but there is every reason to believe it would generate methane in storage and during composting if someone bothered to measure it

Miami’s Metrozoo is recycling 1,400 pounds of elephant poop, 750 pounds of rhino dung, and 500 pounds of giraffe excrement per day.

In an innovative effort to save landfill space and reduce the zoo’s ecological footprint, the organic waste is used as fertilizer, and also to “decorate the zoo grounds.” In addition to the “big producers” - elephants, rhinos, and giraffes - other herbivores are regularly making their own contributions.

Metrozoo’s horticultural supervisor, Tom Trump, said that to recycle and reuse whatever they could “made sense.” Since starting the recycling project last year, the park has saved over $20,000.

Miami Metrozoo is home to over 1,000 animals, representing over 400 species - 48 of which are endangered species.

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiswango/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

There is a growing movement to assess the value–in dollar terms–of “ecosystem services” such as storm protection (from salt marshes), pollination of crops (from bee colonies and insects), natural predation of harmful insects and parasites (by birds, bats and other animals), fertilizer from animal feces, fish in the oceans, clean water and air, and cooling/greenhouse gas-controlling forests, etc.

This movement has been gaining steam–especially with the recent loss of 40% of U.S. bee colonies by a mysterious virus (causing billions of dollars in lost crops), and the devastation wrought by hurricane Katrina (largely due to the human destruction of natural buffers like salt marshes and sand bars).

Earlier this year, in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Peter Kareiva et al, published a call for renewed efforts to put a dollar figure on the value of nature’s services. Putting a price on such services (defined as any function of the natural world that we benefit from) is extremely tricky and difficult, but not putting any price at all on these services, in the view of the authors, seems a serious mistake.

Kareiva, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, elaborated on this idea: “In this world, cost benefit analysis and dollars are how decisions get made…When nature and the benefits that nature [provides] are not converted to dollars then it can’t be on the table for those discussions and, in a way, nature’s not getting credit for what it’s doing.” (quoted from a February, 5, 2009 podcast report by David Biello for Scientific American)

The time has come to credit Nature for what it does for us. Not to do so, the authors argue, is to devalue Nature, and thus to encourage our collective ignorance and misuse/abuse of its services.

photo credit: Jon Sullivan, public domain

Today we are an oil-based civilization, one that is totally dependent on a resource whose production will soon be falling. Since 1981, the quantity of oil extracted has exceeded new discoveries by an ever-widening margin. In 2008, the world pumped 31 billion barrels of oil but discovered fewer than 9 billion barrels of new oil. World reserves of conventional oil are in a free fall, dropping every year.

As I note in my latest book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, discoveries of conventional oil total roughly 2 trillion barrels, of which 1 trillion have been extracted so far, with another trillion barrels to go. By themselves, however, these numbers miss a central point. As security analyst Michael Klare notes, the first trillion barrels was easy oil, “oil that’s found on shore or near to shore; oil close to the surface and concentrated in large reservoirs; oil produced in friendly, safe, and welcoming places.” The other half, Klare notes, is tough oil, “oil that’s buried far offshore or deep underground; oil scattered in small, hard-to-find reservoirs; oil that must be obtained from unfriendly, politically dangerous, or hazardous places.”

This prospect of peaking oil production has direct consequences for world food security, as modern agriculture depends heavily on the use of fossil fuels. Most tractors use gasoline or diesel fuel. Irrigation pumps use diesel fuel, natural gas, or coal-fired electricity. Fertilizer production is also energy-intensive. Natural gas is used to synthesize the basic ammonia building block in nitrogen fertilizers. The mining, manufacture, and international transport of phosphates and potash all depend on oil.

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The weather is warming up, and it’s about the right time to start planting your spring garden! Whether you’re living in an apartment with just a little bit of window or patio space or a house with a yard, you can still grow some of your own food to save a little cash and reduce your food miles. Rather than spend money all season on expensive (and often petroleum-derived) fertilizer, why not get yourself a worm bin, and make your own nutrient-rich compost?

If you have a lot of yard space, you can build yourself a full-sized compost bin. Vermicomposting, compost bins where worms do the work breaking down the organic matter, are great for folks with a less space, but you homeowners can benefit from a worm bin, too! Worm castings are super-nutritious, and worm bins yeild good compost relatively quickly. The bins are easy to make yourself, and you can even divert some waste from the landfill while you’re at it! Bonus points if you rescue discarded plastic tubs, rather than buying new ones. Check out this awesome step-by-step video on getting your worm bin together:

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One of the first steps to starting an organic garden should be to begin a compost pile. Composting will break down organic matter into nutrient-rich material that builds soil and nourishes plants. And just like anyone can garden, no matter their situation, there are composting possibilities for everyone! Read on to learn how to close the loop and start composting…

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My daughter and I are guests in a state-of-the-art green home, and I have just finished plunging a clogged toilet on her behalf.  I feel queasy. Though I only have to do this a couple of times a year, I feel mildly traumatized.  Sure, it’s nasty, but the part that bothers me most is the toilet itself.

The way I see it, flush toilets are a relic of the past. They consume precious drinking water and produce a disproportionate volume of toxic, bio-hazardous waste. Even low-flush toilets are hybrid Hummers, a field improvement on a fundamentally bad idea.

Aesthetically speaking, does anyone dispute that flush toilets are just plain gross? Hey, other than clogging, splash-back, overflows, streaking, and sound amplification, what’s not to like?

As it turns out, the problems posed by “modern sanitation” are immense, but completely unnecessary.

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And as someone who loves gardening, from the toil of clearing a plot and weeding the rows to the belly-filling delight come harvest time, I thought I would share some tips on how you can be a compassionate, caring, careful gardener.

This is particularly important, too, since even small family gardens can become places of profound natural tragedy, places of mass murder and intensive pollution, places of blood, sweat, and tears. Ironically, gardens can often be the least “green” when the plants in them are shining with the deepest, richest shades of green.

And the main reason for these instances of terror and destruction and death? One word: VARMINTS.

Yessir, critters, pests, thieves…call them what you will. They come in many forms, and they seem to come at every moment, nibbling and draining and infesting and infecting and basically ruining everything that you plan to enjoy. Yes’m, the varmints launch a perpetual (seemingly organized and strategic) assault on your goodly little garden…and so appropriate countermeasures surely seem justified.

But, alas, most of these countermeasures employed on any scale are far from careful, far from compassionate, and extremely far from sustainable or natural or eco-friendly. Just go into any garden center or hardware store and look at the panoply of pesticides, sitting there as an ingredient in a witches’ brew with other chemical fertilizers and enhancers. You may start to feel dizzy even before opening one and inhaling the fumes!

So, then, how can you make your garden green in the healthiest, most sustainable and ecologically friendly ways? How can you be a careful gardener and a small-scale steward on your own little plot? How can you save lives even as you nourish your and your family’s (and maybe even your whole neighborhood’s!) lives? Here are just a few ways you can garden green to get a green garden.

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That scent is so rich, so savory, so earthy, so pungently sweet that just one whiff seems to bury you in an olfactory pleasure dome. And if you keep basking in the aroma, you may well feel driven to grab a pitchfork, plop a straw hat on your head, stick a blade of grass in your mouth, and head on out to the fields. This is especially true on those oh-so-humid mornings in the peak of summer, when the air is so moist and dense that you almost have to put on scuba gear. But any old day is a great day for cow poop.

I confess that I am no connoisseur of creaturely caca, but I would bet that none can compare with the quality of a cow’s. Horse manure comes close, but it pushes pungency at the expense of sweetness, plus it is not very good for fertilizer. The feces of fowls is not even in the same league; it is far too acrid, not to mention slimy and sticky and all around offensive. Elephant excrement is similarly versatile (for example, it makes a great alternative source for paper), yet so far it lacks the time-tested dependability and widespread availability of cow dung; pachyderm poo is thus still an exotic delicacy rather than a common staple. (I cannot speak to its odoriferous character, alas.) And nobody would sing paeans to dog and cat poop. Look at how tenderly people carry those telltale plastic bags when walking their dogs–usually with one arm extended as the dog pulls the leash and the other arm, hand, and pinching fingers extended as far away as possible with the bag bobbing in the air. When it comes to the felines, we have managed to train them to go potty in specified places, cover it with “fresh scent” granules, and graciously shake off anything sticking to their paws. I suppose “domestication,” in part, means proper toilet training…or “house training,” as it is called. And as for “humanure”…I am not even going there.

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1. Energy Prices

Fertilizers are a very energy intensive product. Nitrogen fertilizers are commonly made from petroleum or natural gas. The potash and phosphates in the fertilizers are derived from mining, which also requires a lot of energy. Finally, the finished product needs to be transported and we know all about high gas prices.

2. Fertilizer Demand in China and India

China and India have increasingly been depending on fertilizer, causing a spike in demand. The price of fertilizer has climbed to $750 a ton.

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Those cute little creatures shown in the video are represent what may be the future of carbon sequestration.

CARS is the acronym for Carbon Algae Recycling System, it’s a system under development in Canada to clean up tailing ponds and greenhouse gas emissions left by the Alberta Tar Sands project.

As the video shows, exhaust CO2 is pumped into algae-rich tailing ponds where it’s digested. The plumped-out algae, full of hydrocarbons and heavy metals, are harvested and turned into biofuels.

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A new study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) finds that humans have had a heavy impact on more than 40 percent of the world’s oceans. That’s an area of more than 55 million square miles, or more than 144 million square kilometers.

NOAA researchers combined data from about 17 different human activities — including fishing, fertilizer runoff, shipping and pollution — to generate a global map on how those factors are affecting the oceans.

The marine regions suffering the most include the East Coast of North America, the North Sea, the South and East China seas, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Bering Sea and parts of the western Pacific. So far, the polar seas remain the least impacted (give climate change a little more time, though, and that could soon no longer be the case).

“The extent of human influence was probably more than any of us expected,” said Kenneth Casey, a co-author of the study, which will be published in tomorrow’s (Feb. 15) issue of Science.

In those areas, the ecosytems facing the greatest threats are coral reefs and seagrass beds, both of which are critical habitats or nursey grounds for fish, as well as coastal mangroves.

Maybe this latest study will help further weaken one of the arguments used by climate change deniers, the one that says humans are too puny to wreak large-scale damage to a planet the size of Earth. Puny, yes, but damaging? Without a doubt.