Main points
- population in the world is growing (humans)
- 78% of nitrogen is in the atmosphere
- It s not easy for farmers to get the nitrogen to the
- Scientists had learned that the other two key nutrients being potassium and phosphorus are limiting agricultural yields much less frequently and that any shortages of these two elements are also much easier to fix
- Nitrogen fixation - the nitrogen molecules are split then incorporated into the chemically reactive compound ammonia
- Farmers try to replenish the soil by planting legumes after harvesting crops that degrade the soil.
- algae and cyanobacteria can grow with little restraint the subsequent decomposition takes other creatures of oxygen and reduces or eliminates, fish and other crustacean species
- High nitrate levels can cause life-threatening "blue baby" disease in children, and they has been associated to some type of cancers
Authors Main Idea
In this article the author's main idea is to let the reader know about the affect of growth in human population and the harm of difficulty of the breakdown of element Nitrogen. Nitrogen being an important element to both human population and the environment, being the part of the DNA and RNA its job is to act as molecule being able to store and transfer genetic information. The author also explains how nitrogen is also helpful to plants and helps farmer withe their crops. The bacteria known as legumes converts the atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, letting the plant absorb it. When scientist came upon the realization of the rapid growth of plants discovering that it was because of Nitrogen they then had the idea to have a more efficient way to mass produce the crops. Having the population growing ment a higher demand in food, therefore the farmers were pressured to grow their crops faster by using nitrogen to enrich the fertilizer. The problem is the fertilizer is a big harm to our marine life ecosystem leading it to excessive amount of nutrients and causing an algae blooms that leads to dead zones.
My Reflection
This class has demonstrated me the negativity that humans have in this world, after reading this article i have been thinking how greedy humans can be although we do not mean to harm the ecosystem we do it due to the lack of education and knowledge towards the topic of environmental science. It is hard to maintain the amount of people and not cause damage to our ecosystem, however reducing the amount of fertilizer can be a solution to this problem although it the government that would be blamed for the reason of starvation among the people. Farmers rely on fertilizer to continue growing their crops, The idea of knowing how children are also affected by this idea and being diagnose with "blue baby" kills me, we as humans need to find better techniques of farming to grow our crops healthier and with less unnecessary chemicals.