atreyger’s Recent Comments

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  I always thought that being green resulted from eating really bad food or from being extremely hung over after a night of hard drinking... Good point, it's a catch 22 situation.On Why Branson and SuperFreakonomics are wrong, in pictures posted 2 weeks, 5 days ago 33 Responses

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  NOOOOOO, not foreign direct investment!!!On Why Branson and SuperFreakonomics are wrong, in pictures posted 2 weeks, 5 days ago 33 Responses

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  Most of the N in any fertilizer that is taken up by plants is in the nitrate-ammonium form (NO3-NH4) either in pellets or otherwise, there is probably some nitrite that is also taken up, but in small amounts. This is usually added to the point of saturation within conventional agriculture in order to provide the most of this limiting compound. The difference in organic versus conventional is that there is less overall N in organic, and it is tied up with organic compounds allowing for slower release.

   

  While I fully agree that organic is better in most ways, it is difficult for me to buy this posting for several reasons: citing a partisan (lobbying?) Big Organic group; and while I'm sure that the increase in cancers, etc. in the past few years is somewhat tied to our diet (i.e. nitrates in meat have an effect), this may be confounded by many other factors: increase in detection, increase in population and decrease in 'natural selection', such as wars and diseases, increase in radioactive carbon due to atomic testing, etc. etc. etc.

   

  While I am fully on board with organic, I feel like the jury in the scientific case is still out based on the evidence provided in this article. One of the more compelling arguments that I have seen outside of this article is the increase in cancer rates in Hispanic population compared to the country of their origin, which is still confounded by other factors: drinking, smoking, and eating unhealthy food (which is a different issue from the general conventional vs. organic ag).

  On The obvious advantage of organic food over conventional posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago 16 Responses

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  CLWeber,

  I disagree with you:

  1) I don't think that a carbon saturation point has been shown, particularly with recalcitrant carbon forms, e.g. humus. Furthermore, as a result of very slow lignin decomposition, any build-up of carbon in the humic layer is slowly leached down the soil horizons, thus C stays in soil nearly indefinitely, barring severe topsoil disturbances. The difference between best-case pasture and best-case grain-fed scenarios is also a bit murky, since nearly all pasturing is similar, with similar rates of C storage, whereas I have yet to see a non-pilot dairy farm in NYS that has methane capture. It's a good farm that has a permanent functioning manure lagoon... And nearly all farms spread the shit come late winter on top of the snowpack (which then immediately melts, creating 'interesting' water issues for us to study and create BMPs for).

  2) Agreed, but every cornfield is losing C, or at best keeping neutral, whereas pastures are retaining some. Maybe not as much as forests, but still

  3) That's true, but that is how ANY measurement works.

  On Debunking the meat/climate change myth posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago 92 Responses

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  CLWeber,

  In North America, I think that much of the current ruminant animals have replaced prior ruminants that have been eliminated by bison hunters/eliminators. Supposing a difference of 10-20x increase in ruminants in the present compared to historic numbers (hard numbers are difficult to come by, but I believe that is the range), and a reduction of methane and CO2 production with grain-fed beef, the climate impact of cows is exaggerated. I believe that a halving of the North American herd would bring the ruminant emissions to a range encountered in the past.

  Furthermore, while I am admittedly not familiar (and too busy to become so) with the ruminant life-cycle literature, I suspect that the soil C storage was not accounted for in the above studies. Please inform the crowd here, as to whether this is true or not.

  ATreyger

  On Debunking the meat/climate change myth posted 2 months, 4 weeks ago 92 Responses