Pollution

TRANSCRIPT
The perils of excess nitrogen. I'm Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update. It's no secret that human carbon emissions are a big problem. But two recent reviews in the journalScience warn that we also need to curb our production of reactive nitrogen. University of Virginia bio-geochemist James Galloway notes that in 2005, humans produced roughly twice as much reactive nitrogen as nature didmainly by farming with nitrogen-packed fertilizers and burning fossil fuels. Galloway: And so as this reactive nitrogen is lost, it cycles throughout the earth's reservoirs soils, waters, and the atmosphere, As it moves through these reservoirs, it causes these cascades of environmental impacts. Impacts that include air pollution, acidic soil and water, ozone depletion, and global warming and the resulting threats to animals and people. I'm Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.

MAKING SENSE OF THE RESEARCH

Carbon emissions have been dominating the headlines lately, and there's a lot of interest in trying to control them. Within the past few years, the term carbon footprint (how much carbon a person, organization, or activity pumps into the environment) has gone from environmental jargon to mainstream language. But recent scientific reports suggest that we're ignoring an equally large problem: our nitrogen footprint. You probably know from basic science class that nitrogen is everywhere. In fact, it makes up 78 percent of the air you breathe, and about 3 percent of your body. However, the nitrogen in the air is actually molecular nitrogen, or (N2), which is inert. In other words, it doesn't react chemically with anything else. Galloway and his colleagues are concerned about reactive nitrogen, which comes from two main sources: burning fossil fuels (which is also a source of carbon emissions) and agricultural fertilizers. All plants need reactive nitrogen to grow, and it takes lots of nitrogen-rich fertilizer to grow a farm full of crops. However, only about 50 percent of the nitrogen in fertilizers gets absorbed by crops, and only 10 to 15 percent ultimately gets consumed by people. The rest ends up washing out of the soils and into streams and rivers that ultimately carry it out to the ocean. Even the nitrogen that humans do eat gets back into the environment through the human waste in our sewage.

What's more, a single reactive nitrogen atom can pass from the air to the soil to the water, wreaking havoc every step of the way. For example, a nitrogen atom that's released from factory smoke may start by forming smog in the air. If rain flushes that same atom out of the air, it can end up in lakes and forest soils as nitric acid, which can kill fish and insects. From there, the nitrogen atom could be carried out to the coast and contribute to environmental problems like red tides and dead zones. A red tide is an intense bloom of (sometimes red) algae that results from nitrogen-rich runoff seeping into the ocean. When the algae die, they sink to the sea floor and are eaten by bacteria, which consume excess oxygen that fish and other marine life need to survive. If the oxygen drops too low, it can create a dead zone in which no life can survive; there's a famous one in the Gulf of Mexico that's the size of New Jersey. After contributing to that damage, that same nitrogen atom can evaporate back into the atmosphere as part of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, which destroys the atmospheric ozone layer that protects us from harmful ultraviolet radiation.

ybrid Car Air Pollution Statistics

Since hybrid cars burn regular gasoline, they emit the same greenhouse gases as conventional cars. But since hybrid cars are much more fuel efficient than conventional vehicles -- the U.S. Energy Information Administration sets the average mileage for a hybrid at 38.7 miles per gallon (16.5 kilometers/liter) compared with 26.7 (11.4 kilometers/liter) for a gas-only vehicle -- they require far less gas to cover the same distance. If every gallon of gasoline contains 20 pounds (9 kilograms) of carbon dioxide, then a hybrid car will emit 51.6 pounds (23.1 kilograms) of carbon dioxide every 100 miles (161 kilometers), while a conventional car will emit 74.9 pounds (34 kilograms). If you multiply those numbers over the lifetime of a vehicle, hybrids more than make up for their heavier production footprint. Let's look at some more lifetime emissions numbers. The Argonne National Laboratory ran a side-by-side comparison of hybrid and conventional vehicles over their entire life cycle, which includes vehicle production, vehicle operation and the energy required to produce fuel for both cars. If you assume that both vehicles travel 160,000 miles (257,495 kilometers) over their lifetime, the conventional vehicle requires 6,500 Btu of energy per mile compared to 4,200 Btu per mile for a hybrid. That higher energy input results in far greater lifetime greenhouse gas emissions for conventional vehicles compared to hybrids, more than 1.1 pounds (500 grams) per mile compared to 0.75 pounds (340 grams) per mile [source: Burnham et al]. But there is an interesting side note to the hybrid vs. conventional debate. Hybrid carmakers like Toyota are set to release a new breed of plug-in hybrids. Equipped with a bigger battery pack, these hybrids can be plugged into the wall like an electric car, giving an extra 10 to 20 miles (16 to 32 kilometers) of zero emissions driving before the gas engine kicks in. Toyota expects to sell 20,000 to 30,000 units of its 2011 Plug-in Prius -- and more in the coming years [source: Green]. The trouble with plug-in hybrids (and electric cars, too) is that electricity isn't always cleaner than gasoline. More than 45 percent of electricity in the U.S. is generated by coal-powered plants [source: EIA]. According to another Argonne National Laboratory report, if a plug-in hybrid charges from coal-generated electricity, it could be responsible for emitting up to 10 percent more greenhouse gasses than a conventional vehicle and up to 60 percent more than a standard hybrid [source: Elgowainy].

For lots more information about hybrids, electric cars and the world of alternative-fuel vehicles, see the links on the next page.

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LUNG SHOT: A recent study found that at least 8 percent of the more than 300,000 cases of childhood asthma in Los Angeles County can be attributed to traffic-related pollution at homes within 250 feet of a busy roadway.Image: Hemera Collection

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Dear EarthTalk: Is it true that asthma cases in children often correlate to living close to roads and all the associated pollution-spewing traffic?Jake Locklear, San Diego Living near a roadway certainly does exacerbate asthma, especially for kids. To wit, a recent study by the University of Southern California (USC)the most comprehensive by far to date on this topicfound that at least eight percent of the more than 300,000 cases of childhood asthma in Los Angeles County can be attributed to traffic-related pollution at homes within 250 feet of a busy roadway. The findings, released in the September 2012 online edition of the peer-reviewed journal,Environmental Health Perspectives, indicate that previous research underestimated the effects of roadway traffic on asthma. Our findings suggest that there are large and previously unappreciated public health consequences of air pollution in Los Angeles County and probably other metropolitan areas with large numbers of children living near major traffic corridors, says Rob McConnell, one of the lead researchers on the study and a professor of preventive medicine at USCs Keck School of Medicine.

These findings confirm our understanding that air pollution not only makes things worse for people with asthma but can actually cause asthma to develop in healthy children, reports Diane Bailey of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), a leading environmental non-profit. It is even more sobering when you consider that 45 million Americans live within 300 feet of a highway and many of them are children. USC researchers note that new laws in California designed to reduce carbon outputimproving fuel efficiency and reducing vehicle miles by increasing public transit optionswill also help reduce asthma triggers. Some of the policies designed to reduce traffic congestion and car usage include offering housing developers incentives to locate projects closer to transit stops, thus encouraging use of public transit. Plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change offer an opportunity to develop win-win strategies that will maximize the health benefits from reduction both of greenhouse gases and of air pollutants that directly harm children, McConnell says. There is also emerging evidence that other diseases may be caused or exacerbated by urban air pollution, including atherosclerosis, lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and neurological disorders, McConnell adds. Thus, policies to combat climate change may have near-term health benefits beyond reducing the burden of disease due to asthma. According to NRDCs Bailey, prioritizing the land directly next to freeways and other busy roads for commercial rather than residential use is one way to keep people at a safer distance from asthma-triggering pollution. Those who already live near busy roadways can help mitigate pollution effects by planting treesfoliage of all kinds is good at absorbing pollutantsand by filtering their indoor air to minimize overall exposure. But given that traffic pollution increases asthma by some eight percent, says Bailey, we better do everything we can do reduce that pollution and minimize exposure to it.