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July 11, 2023

In November 2022, four eminent scientists issued a theoretical physics paper, “Nitrous Oxide and Climate.” It proves that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s “war on nitrous oxide” to achieve Net Zero Emissions (NZE) by 2050 threatens to cause a significant collapse in the world’s food supply.

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The article’s four authors are eminent men in their field, so their analysis and opinion deserve to be taken very seriously: (1) C.A. de Lange, a physicist at Vrije Universiteit, in Amsterdam; (2) J.D. Ferguson, an M.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, with a specialty in developing computer models of the effect of nitrogen fertilizers on dairy farming; (3) William Happer, emeritus professor of physics at Princeton; and (4) W.A. van Wijngaarden, a professor of physics at York University in Canada.

All four are staunch critics of the IPCC war to expand the hysterical climate attack on carbon dioxide (CO2) to include demonizing nitrous oxide (N2O) and methane (CH4), which are classed as “minor greenhouse gases.” The report concludes with a compelling truth: “It is not possible to maintain highly productive agriculture without nitrogen fertilizer.” It’s a genuinely frightening thought that the neo-Marxists at the heart of today’s climate hysteria have chosen to attack N2O because millions will die if governments ban nitrogen fertilizers. The neo-Marxist ideologues are willing to manipulate existential climate fear in their insane willingness to kill millions if that’s what is required to negate capitalism.

Famine from the Palazzo Abatellis. Photo © José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro / CC BY-SA 4.0.

The scientists’ core argument completely negates the IPCC’s hysteria. The data establish that the minimal impact of N2O and CH4 on Earth’s temperature does not risk a collapse in the global food chain. They write:

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Since the biosphere is the main source of the minor greenhouse gases, nitrous oxide and methane, agriculture has been targeted with various regulations that will supposedly “save the planet” from climate change. The planet is not in danger from greenhouse gases. But some of the regulations to address this non-problem are of great concern since they will drastically cut food supplies for the world.

This argument understands the definition of “radiative forcing,” the scientific phenomenon that quantifies mathematically what in common parlance is loosely known as the “greenhouse gas” effect.

Radiative forcing is the difference in the net upward thermal radiation flux from the Earth through a transparent atmosphere and radiation through an otherwise identical atmosphere with greenhouse gases.

The point is that greenhouse gases prevent all the heat from the solar irradiance the Earth absorbs during the day from escaping to outer space at night. Without greenhouse gases, the Earth would most likely not be habitable for human life. Radiative forcing is measured scientifically in W m-2, i.e., in watts per square meter irradiance.

N2O is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 because N2O absorbs more escaping irradiance, but N2O is much less plentiful than CO2 in the atmosphere. N2O’s contribution to radiative forcing is about 1/13 that of CO2.

A significant conclusion of the paper is that the observed rates of increase of N2O “pose no threat whatsoever to climate.” The authors base this conclusion “on the well-established principles of radiation transfer, which shows that for current growth rates, the contribution of N2O to warming is only about 6% that of all greenhouse gases.” Thus, they estimate that “the absolute warming rate from N2O is about 0.064 C [Celsius] per century.” This means that imposing rigorous regulations to eliminate nitrogen fertilizers from agriculture would be reckless, given the minuscule contribution of N2O at current emission rates to global warming. They stress: