We’ve been seeing a lot of activity in the past few months in the House of Representatives on climate and energy - see a number of blog items here on the Waxman-Markey bill.  The Senate hasn’t been idle, certainly, but they’ve been flying a bit below the radar.  Senator Boxer, chair of the Environment & Public Works Committee, is waiting for the House to finish its work before she formally takes up climate change in committee.  However, Senator Bingaman, chair of the Energy & Natural Resources Committee, has been getting at the energy end of things.  The committee yesterday voted 15-8 to approve a broad package that includes a renewable portfolio standard (aka renewable electricity standard) of 15%.  “This bill will help shift our country to cleaner sources of energy, and more secure sources as well,” Bingaman said.  The bill also opens up hitherto-banned areas offshore for oil and gas drilling, and also gives the federal government ultimate authority in determining questions of transmission line routing.  Reuters reports here that “It is unclear when the full chamber will consider the energy package. Earlier this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he hoped to combine the energy measures with climate legislation.”  As I’ve noted, Sen. Boxer is expected to get cap-and-trade legislation up to speed after the House completes its work.

Meanwhile, all the signals from the House are that a floor vote will happen as soon as next week.  Steny Hoyer, the Majority Leader in the House, said this is moving forward.  See House may vote on climate change bill next week, also from Reuters, in which Hoyer says they’ll wrap things up before the July 4^th recess, or just after.  As I noted in an earlier post, Nancy Pelosi has said she wants the legislation passed - or else.  (HT to “The Hill.”)

Henry Waxman, the commanding general in the House in this Homeric struggle to effect a new path for energy and the climate, has been working night and day (really since his accession to the chairmanship last November) to effect all the changes - yes, and compromises - necessary to make the legislation viable.  I heard any number of speakers at the conference I attended last week laud Waxman for his leadership.  I’ve been a huge fan since the 1980’s when he was chairman of the Health and Environment Subcommittee.

Here is a ClimateWire story, via the “NY Times,” that discusses Waxman’s talks with the Agriculture Committee heavyweights, led by Collin Peterson, the chair.  The story reports that “…farm state lawmakers have not been shy in stating their problems with provisions in the bill that give U.S. EPA the principal oversight role for the carbon offset market. Peterson also is against a draft EPA regulation that would hold the ethanol industry accountable for ‘indirect land use,’ such as crop conversion in other countries.”  (The serious implications of land use changes was the subject of my post, Are Biofuels A Bummer?, from over a year ago.)

Peterson, according to this from “The Wonk Room,” is quite a piece of work.  He seems to be denying the impacts of climate change on agriculture, flying full in the face of the federal government’s critical report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, issued this week.  (Stay tuned for more on the study in a later post here.)

I have a very high regard for the reporting at the venerable “Economist.”  (Somewhat less so for the editorial writers.)  In a perfectly informative, relatively important article recently on water quality and quantity issues worldwide, I thought the writer overstepped the bounds of reason on one particular point.  For the record, here is my letter to the Editor:

Sir,

In your otherwise thorough and penetrating article on water shortages (”Sin aqua non, April 11^th, 2009), one sentence jumped off the page at me, striking me as singularly wrongheaded:  “The shift of diet will be impossible to reverse since it is a product of rising wealth and urbanisation.”  Given the burden on health from an inordinately meat-based diet; the pressure on food prices and water resources that you so accurately describe; the further thoroughly documented contributions that animal agriculture, particularly beef production, makes to global climate change owing to devastating land-use practices, the build-up of nitrous oxide from the inorganic fertilizers used to grow feed, and the methane from manure and the animals themselves; not to mention the extraordinary toxic soup of pesticides, steroids and antibiotics that are increasingly used in the production of meat; then one would have to assume that societies around the world would choose a different path to “affluence.”  It would not only not be impossible for developing nations to “leapfrog” into diets that are more traditional and infinitely healthier for their populations and local environments, it would be, given the dissemination of knowledge about smarter, cheaper and healthier ways to eat and a reduced obedience to the relentless marketing of interests that promote this behavior, preferable.

There is an absolutely fabulous story in today’s “NY Times” called Is a Food Revolution Now in Season? There is also a great story on the new White House vegetable, fruit and herb garden from Thursday by the veteran food reporter, Marian Burros, and a “Room for Debate” page on it.  Check out the “Week in Review” too for Eating Food That’s Better for You, Organic or Not by the super genius food thinker and writer, Mark Bittman.

That the Obamas are embracing whole foods is a huge boon in several areas:  for nutrition, for education, for the environment and for the economy.  That it is manifestly just plain good sense to eat better and to live more lightly on the earth is what the First Lady is demonstrating.  The power of common sense and ecological reckoning is also very much at the heart of the NYT story on the “Food Revolution.”  That the Dept. of Agriculture is being led by Tom Vilsack and Kathleen Merrigan, that writers with as powerful a message as Marion Nestle, Michael Pollan, and Eric Schlosser are being heard on The Hill, that legislators as progressive as Tom Harkin may now see much more of their program advanced - these are all startling, hopeful developments.

The environmental dimensions of the misguided policy of the corn ethanol boondoggle, the nightmare of our addiction to industrialized nitrogen fertilizer, and the greenhouse gas burden of our factory farms have been discussed at the blog.

I love that Tom Vilsack said in the “Food Revolution” article that he’d starting thinking about eating better when his first grandchild was on the way.  The other perspective is that his grandchild will need a healthy planet on which to live and to get to know his grandchildren.  That’s a lot of what sustainable agriculture is also about.

Kipling had it right.

I was at an event recently at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs (where I’m teaching) and Elisabeth Rosenthal, the “NY Times” environmental reporter based in Europe, was being interviewed.  She touched on a number of important subjects including the talks in Poznań in December, some of the international politics of climate change, and an interesting approach to green building:  “passive” houses.  Passive houses employ fairly simple principles of ultraefficient insulation and heat exchange.  In the same vein - simple and easy - she had an article recently on the burgeoning practice in Britain of converting used cooking oil to transportation fuel.

During the Q&A, I asked her about black carbon and why the development aid community isn’t doing much more to promote clean cooking, something that can be done low-tech and inexpensively.  (See Black Carbon and Solar Cookers.)  I wondered why we are promoting nuclear power technology for India, but not low-tech alternatives.  She said it was a good question and that these sorts of solutions, in her opinion, needed more backing.  Rosenthal is a good friend of a good friend and so we talked about this some more after the program.

There’s a terrific article from another terrific environmental reporter, Fiona Harvey, in today’s “FT” about biochar.  This is a comprehensive look at a technology that has enormous potential to not only sequester billions of tons of carbon but also to reduce the need for nitrogen fertilizers that cost farmers all over the world boatloads of money and also cause massive environmental damage, including pouring nitrous oxide, a potent GHG, into the atmosphere.

I wrote about biochar in this post, The Earth, from last summer.  It has some extraordinary properties.  The idea is to infuse soil with biochar in order to enhance fertility and to capture and hold the carbon contained in the biomass that’s been used to produce the biochar.  As Harvey puts it:  “What is different about biochar is that the stability of the charcoal should make it possible to lock away the carbon it contains for hundreds of years. The carbon is mineralised, so it’s very resistant to breaking down. What’s more, the ancillary benefits - not just its soil-improving characteristics, but certain by-products of its manufacture - should be enough to make it economically attractive.”

Where do you get the biomass?  Agricultural waste and certain components of municipal solid waste are two excellent sources.  How do you make it?  Pyrolysis - “a form of controlled thermal decomposition of organic material in the absence of oxygen.”  (Long before I knew about biochar, I conceived of pyrolysis as an integral part of an urban solid waste management scheme that I’d noodled and promulgated to a great number of people in New York City.  See the last paragraph of this post from a couple of years ago for more on my “Urban Gold” concept.)

You can get so much bang for the buck out of low-tech, quickly and easily deployable approaches to energy production and distribution (solar hot water heaters and ground source heat pumps), energy efficiency (insulation), agriculture (no-till and biochar), green building (passive houses and green roofs), not to mention solar cookers for the developing world.  KISS - keep it simple, stupid - is the engineer’s way of saying what Kipling said in poetry.

I’ve been blogging on climate change for almost two years here - and having a great time, don’t get me wrong.  But there are some new FPA sister blogs that are looking at this issue as well.  Welcome aboard.

Check out, for instance, Thawing Permafrost Could Accelerate Global Warming from Mia Bennett at the blog on The Arctic.  See also this long, thoughtful post, Climate Change - A Global Issue, A Global Solution, from David Kampf at the Rising Powers blog.  Then there’s Shift on corn-based ethanol? at the blog on the Global Food Crisis.  (I’ve written about Biofuels and Agriculture a fair number of times here.)

Good stuff.  Check these on out.

The Answer, My Friend - Wind Farm Off Cape Cod Clears Hurdle is the story from the “NY Times” the other day.  As you know, offshore wind projects have been hurtling forward in Europe, but have lagged years behind in the US.  The Cape Wind project generated an extraordinary and largely unforeseen backlash when it was proposed in 2001.  While the opposition has gone through its paces, other projects have come to life on the Atlantic Coast , see Offshore Wind in the Northeast.  With the green light for Cape Wind from the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, the developer, Jim Gordon, says he thinks construction can begin late this year and he can get power up and flowing by the end of 2011.  Score one big one for the Environment over NIMBY.

Soot - When Rajendra Pachauri addressed the Asia Society (see last post below), he had a little video from TERI on its “Lighting a Billion Lives” project.  This aims to employ solar PV to power lanterns all over rural India.  What I would have liked to ask him was how TERI and others are addressing the cooking smoke that causes such extraordinary damage to health throughout the developing world and, very much not incidentally, exacerbates global warming.  See Black Carbon and Solar Cookers.

An article the other day from “The Independent” highlighted new research on the importance of reducing particulate pollution.  A study by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies “shows that cutting down on the pollutant, which has so far been largely ignored by climate scientists, can have an immediate cooling effect , and prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths from air pollution at the same time.”

“The Independent” has great coverage on climate change.  For many more stories, go here.

“Lawful Excuse” - Here’s a story I missed from September, also reported in “The Independent.”  Owing to a wonderful quirk of British law, activists from Greenpeace, who caused more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, successfully argued that ” they had acted lawfully, owing to an honestly held belief that their attempt to stop emissions … would prevent further damage to properties worldwide caused by global warming.”

Jim Hansen, head of the Goddard Institute, testified at the trial.  As reported here, Hansen called for ” an immediate moratorium on new coal-fired power plants that do not capture or sequester CO2.”  According to the article, there is some dissension in the highest reaches of the British cabinet about how to proceed on these plants.

(See also Coal Takes Some Lumps and Baby, It’s Coal Outside from the blog for more on how coal-fired plants are hitting the wall here in the US of A.)

Climate Law - Speaking of the law, here’s another positive development:  Center For Climate Change Law Launched At Columbia reads the release from Columbia Law School.   Mike Gerrard, one of the premier environmental lawyers and environmental law thinkers in the country, is heading up this new effort.  As we move ahead with a federal cap-and-trade regime, and get closer to a comprehensive international agreement, climate law is going to be center stage.  Columbia University is well placed to help develop the law and the lawyers to execute it.

Essay Competition - As my FPA colleague, Cassandra Clifford reported the other day at her excellent blog on Children, the World Bank has a competition for students on the essay subject:  “How Does Climate Change Affect You?”  Go here for more.

Carbon Market Burgeoning - Point Carbon, a superb ” provider of independent news, analysis and consulting services for European and global power, gas and carbon markets,” had an eye-catching release last week:  “4.9Gt CO2e traded in 2008 , up massive 83% on previous year.”  It’s subtitle was equally arresting:  “Carbon market worth almost €100bn in 2008, more than double 2007’s figures.”  Not chopped liver.  As we move forward with mandatory carbon regimes in the US, Europe and elsewhere, these numbers are going to skyrocket.  See any number of my posts on the Carbon Markets for more on what could be the world’s most-traded commodity in just a few years hence.

Crops that Fight Warming - Here’s an item from Reuters that jumped off the screen at me:  Sun-reflecting crops could ease global warming.  One of the researchers is quoted as saying “We found that different varieties of most food crops do differ in how much solar energy is reflected back to space.”  This is a promising approach for a number of reasons, including the relatively low cost of switching over to crops with higher reflective properties and the possibility that farmers could receive carbon credits.

I issued the “FPA Climate Change Challenge” over a year and a half ago here.  I wrote “Who’s got a good idea?  Okay, I’ll start this off.  Are you ready?  Since light color reflects heat efficiently (albedo effect), then why don’t we start breeding white grass and get people to accept this for their lawns and golf courses?  We should also use these on roofs.”  Now I know I’m not daft.

Vaclav Klaus - The Czech President had an op-ed this past week in the “Financial Times” that grabbed some attention, more so because the Czech Republic has just assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union.  I have written recently about the extraordinary leadership of the EU on energy and climate, for instance here and here, including the assiduity in all of this by French President Nicolas Sarkozy who led the EU for the final half of last year.  With Klaus, a well-known Skeptic at the helm of the EU, people are holding their breath.  (I mentioned Klaus and how his shenanigans embarrass many Czechs at the end of this post from a while back.)

Klaus wrote at the “FT” that “The uniqueness of current levels of global warming is not a proven phenomenon. The explanation of factors that are contributing to global warming is not very clear and persuasive. Moves to mitigate climate change by fighting carbon dioxide emissions are useless and, what is most important, human beings have proved themselves to be sufficiently adaptable to an incrementally changing climate.”  Phew!  This is one of the prices we pay for democracy.  You sometimes get folks who are, in a word, deranged, holding high public office.  (See also Bush, Cheney, Inhofe and some others.)

Suffice it to say that Klaus got some pushback.  Here’s one eloquent letter saying, among other things, “his conclusions that climate change “alarmists’ are responsible for “restraining our freedom’ is downright otherworldly.”  Another letter says Klaus “must be living in a parallel universe, when he declares: “The global climate is basically not changing.’ He might just as well insist that the world is flat.”  The writer further quotes Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-president of the Greens/European Free Alliance Group in the European parliament who recently told Klaus: “I don’t care about your opinions.”  Ouch.

ExxonMobil Supports Carbon Tax - Speaking of Skeptics, Rex Tillerson, the head of the oil and gas mega-multinational that has provided substantial funding to the leading support group for the Skeptics, the Heartland Institute, has called for a carbon tax instead of a cap-and-trade approach.  (We’ve explored this complex and important issue at the blog a number of times, most recently here.  We’ve also looked at The Skeptics here.)  See Tillerson’s remarks from the press release.  That ExxonMobil is even talking seriously about addressing carbon loading is a big step forward.  Call me Polyanna, perhaps, but I’m glad for every bit of forward progress.  You go, Rex!

Food Shortages - I was struck by this headline from UPI:  Global warming could overheat crops.  A study, published in “Science,” posits that “Rapidly warming climate is likely to seriously alter crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century and, without adaptation, leave half of the world’s population facing serious food shortages”  Here’s the release from Stanford University’s Program on Food Security and the Environment (FSE).  One of the coauthors of the study is the director of FSE, the other is a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington.  Plus, “The serious climate issues won’t be limited to the tropics, the authors conclude. As an example, they cite record temperatures that struck Western Europe in June, July and August of 2003, killing an estimated 52,000 people. That summer-long heat wave cut wheat yields and fodder production in France and Italy by one-third.”

But then Vaclav Klaus thinks it’s all okay, because we can adapt.

Coal Ash - I wrote last week about the horrific spill of coal ash sludge in Tennessee.  (See Jan. 1 below.)   Hundreds of Coal Ash Dumps Lack Regulation is the story today from the “NY Times.”  There are more than 1,300 of them, “most of them unregulated and unmonitored.”  What do they contain?  “heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium, which are considered by the Environmental Protection Agency to be a threat to water supplies and human health.”  The article link has an excellent video too, well worth viewing.

One of the themes of the superb documentary Burning the Future: Coal in America is the poisoning of drinking water.  (I wrote about this film and what it depicts at The Crime of Mountaintop Removal Mining last May.)  The “NY Times” article included this compelling graphic on the extent of water pollution from these sites.

Oil Sands - Today’s “NYT” also has an article about Canadian tar sands, their abundance - and their devastating environmental impact - The Costly Compromises of Oil From Sand.  In a post from March last year, I wrote about oil sands, and flagged a potential big fly in the ointment for the “flow” of oil to the US:  our energy law passed in December of 2007 limits government procurement of alternative fuels that have lifecycle GHG emissions greater than conventional ones.  The article here reports:  “In a recent study, the RAND Corporation estimated that oil from the oil sands generates about 10 to 30 percent more greenhouse gases than conventional crude.”  Does this make any sense when we’re trying to get to a low-carbon world?  Not to me.  To you?  (See also this characteristically terrific story from Betsy Kolbert at the “New Yorker” - Unconventional Crude.)

Aviation Fuel - The venerable Matt Wald has a good story in the “NYT” today about some trials for alternative aviation fuel - A Move Toward Veggie Power Aloft.  Algae is in the mix, as is jatropha.  I admit I love Algae.  I also love jatropha , see the last paragraph from this post of mine from a while back.  Jatropha has a great upside but not perhaps in mass production for aviation fuel.  It would likely squeeze out cropland, as the NYT article reports.  And, as we’ve seen a good number of times from more-than-a-few studies, biofuels are already having a negative impact on food supply and prices.  See this post, for instance, and this.

Energy Security? - If you’re in Europe and you’ve been relying on Russian natural gas, you might be feeling just a tad insecure at the moment.  Here’s an article from today’s “NYT” on the squeeze they’re getting.  I remember hearing a high EU panjandrum at the FPA’s annual World Leadership Forum in September.  I wrote here that “Unfortunately, for my money, she dwelled a little overmuch on the question of pipelines carrying oil and natural gas coming into Europe and not enough on the potential for regional and international cooperation on renewables.”

The EU has certainly embraced renewables, much to their credit, but if they want to get out from under the Russian sword of Damocles, they better pick up the pace.

************

Overall, the “NY Times” has consistently superb coverage.  See their Global Warming topics page for “all the news that’s fit to print.”

I wrote about the EU meetings here earlier this week and about the UN gathering here last week.

Brussels , The leaders of the 27 EU nations gathered today to go over a number of critical matters, not the least among them, energy and climate change.  For the full agenda, see this from the EU.  The first big part of the pie that's been concluded is an agreement on renewables.  AFP said in this article that negotiators from the member states, the European Commission and the European Parliament had worked out a deal that "will mean significant European investment in wind, wave, solar and, where possible geothermal power."

Biofuels, a point of considerable contention by environmentalists given the net negatives for global warming, at least as this industry is presently constituted, remain in the mix, but with an eye toward sustainability and a low-carbon presence.  In this from "NewEnergyFocus," we learn that "Biofuels used towards the target, which must be met by fuel suppliers, will have to save 35% of greenhouse gas emissions compared to fossil fuels, but from 2017 will have to save at least 50% of emissions." 

See this video from the EU on the target of 20% renewables by 2020. 

There's still the final negotiating to be done on the climate change agreement.  EurActiv reports that they're getting close.  In this report today, it appears that diplomats have "have paved the way for a compromise deal on the EU's climate package during the summit."  Some of the higher polluting industries, such as the electric utilities in Eastern and Central Europe, and particularly energy-intensive industries like cement, steel and aluminum, may see more than their fair share of free "pollution rights."  (EurActiv's climate change page, not incidentally, is a terrific information resource.)  For an excellent summary of the issues, see this from the "FT" today.

Poznan , The UN meetings, designed to further progress towards a final international agreement in Copenhagen next year, have been ongoing since December 1 and finish up tomorrow.  Top ministers from around the world have begun their "high-level" talks in Poznan and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told them "he may stage a summit to spur a treaty on climate change as he called for a "Green New Deal' that would both curb global warming and salvage the world economy."  See AFP here.

All during the negotiations, there have been scores of "side events" at which researchers and policymakers, scientists and activists, business leaders and NGO wallahs, have gathered to hear all sorts of creative and finely crafted solutions.  It's been really hard to try to keep up on some of the ones that grab me, but here are a few that might interest you as well:

The International Biochar Initiative (IBI) was there.  I wrote about biochar and terra preta at The Earth in August.  This is a truly exciting approach to renewing agriculture , including weaning it from the deluge of nitrogen that has been creating dead zones in waters throughout the world.

Very excitingly, there are trials set for next year in both England and Belize.  Ancient skills "could reverse global warming' is the story from "The Independent."  One arresting bit:  this effort is being led by two highly successful British entrepreneurs and the goal is to get this up to commercial scale in a few years.  "They aim to grow trees and plants to absorb CO2 and then trap the carbon by turning the resulting biomass into "biochar,' keeping it safely locked up for thousands of years." 

India's TERI has quite a few interesting things to say about Low carbon pathways: challenges and technological options for India.  This one was flagged by the Worldwatch Institute here.  They said "In TERI's most ambitious scenario for energy transformation, two-thirds of India's electricity sector, roughly 800 GW, could be served by solar energy (both photovoltaics and solar thermal) by 2031 or 2032. Large and small hydropower could produce almost 200 GW, followed by wind at slightly over 100 GW and nuclear at 100 GW. Other fuels could be used to a lesser extent. Fossil fuels would account for a much smaller portion of the pie." 

The OECD had a presence in Poland.  Here's the study they released:  Climate Change Mitigation - What Do We Do?  Take a look at some of the other serious work they've been doing on the economics of climate change, including the economics of adaptation.

Here is a list of all the many and diverse side events.  There's a ton of useful material at most of these listings.

I wrote recently about some truly exciting developments in soil reclamation with enormous potential for agriculture.  (See The Earth.)  There is great news in much of this if we pay attention and give these low-tech, largely low-energy-intensive approaches the focus they deserve. 

The (really) bad news is that although fertilizers have increased agricultural output over the years, they have also caused devastating environmental impacts.  I have been remiss here in not addressing the harm that the increasingly pervasive use of fertilizers has had, not only on exacerbating global warming, but on creating "dead zones" in key marine areas.

Here is an important article today from the "NY Times" - Beyond Carbon: Scientists Worry About Nitrogen's Effects.  It points out that public perception of the climate change crisis is mainly focused on the impacts from carbon dioxide and not on other greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide, both listed under the Kyoto Protocol as regulated GHGs.  I would guess that the general public's lack of understanding of the impacts of these other GHGs is true.  However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and scientists and policy analysts all over the world, fully recognize the dangers.  The IPCC notes "Agriculture accounted for an estimated emission of 5.1 to 6.1 Gt carbon dioxide-eq/yr in 2005 (10-12% of total global anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases). Methane contributes 3.3 Gt carbon dioxide-eq/yr and nitrous oxide 2.8 Gt carbon dioxide-eq/yr. Of global anthropogenic emissions in 2005, agriculture accounts for about 60% of nitrous oxide and about 50% of methane."  (See the chapter on Agriculture from the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, Working Group III.)

Notice that the IPCC, as others do, uses the measure "carbon dioxide-equivalent."  The IPCC says carbon dioxide " is the reference gas against which other greenhouse gases are measured"  So, in any event, methane and nitrous oxide are very much under scrutiny along with carbon dioxide, and three others, sulphur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons, and perfluorocarbons, used in refrigeration and for other heavy industrial purposes.  These last three are being phased out under Kyoto and the Montreal Protocol because they are potent ozone-depleting chemicals (ODCs) as well.

The "NY Times" points out that there is another potent GHG, nitrogen trifluoride, which is not regulated.  It has been used in relatively small quantities but its use is increasing significantly.  For what purpose is it used primarily?  For making LCD panels. 

Let's return to nitrogen fertilizers and nitrous oxide, with an output of nearly three billion tons a year of carbon dioxide equivalent.  Greenpeace International had an excellent report out earlier this year - Cool Farming: Climate impacts of agriculture and mitigation potential.  As they put it:  "Nitrous oxide emissions are mainly associated with nitrogen fertilisers and manure applied to soils. Fertilisers are often applied in excess and not fully used by the crop plants, so that some of the surplus is lost as nitrous oxide to the atmosphere."  This is a good, comprehensive report with some lucid explanations and some worthwhile graphics.  They also have a good bit to say here about mitigation options, as does the IPCC, of course, in the document cited above.  See also the International Nitrogen Initiative which is " dedicated to optimizing the use of nitrogen in food production, while minimizing the negative effects of nitrogen on human health and the environment as a result of food and energy production."   

The "NY Times" article is careful to note that there are other concerns in play aside from the radiative forcing from nitrous oxide, not to mention the carbon dioxide and methane from agriculture.  One of the most dire of these are the ocean dead zones that result from the pooling of millions of tons of nitrogen fertilizer runoff.  NASA explains it this way:  "The apparent cause of the creeping dead zones is agriculture, specifically fertilizer. While fertilizer is necessary to foster bumper agricultural crops, it also runs off the fields into the streams and rivers of a watershed. When the fertilizer reaches the ocean, it just becomes more nutrients for the phytoplankton, so they do what they do best: they grow and multiply. Which leads to more organic matter reaching the bottom, more bacterial respiration, and more anoxic bottom water."  For some good graphic explanations of the phenomenon, try this from the Science Museum of Minnesota.