{"id":63074,"date":"2022-07-17T06:46:58","date_gmt":"2022-07-17T11:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=63074"},"modified":"2022-07-17T06:46:58","modified_gmt":"2022-07-17T11:46:58","slug":"dutch-nitrogen-scientist-questions-the-basis-of-government-climate-mandates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=63074","title":{"rendered":"Dutch Nitrogen Scientist Questions the Basis of Government Climate Mandates"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Dutch<\/a><\/div>\n
Dutch farmers are protesting against what they see as harsh measures to cut down nitrogen emissions. (PMVfoto\/Shutterstock)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Dutch Nitrogen Scientist Questions the Basis of Government Climate Mandates<\/a><\/h3>\n
‘We now treat farmers as polluters \u2026 which is a very strange perspective’<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Jaap Hanekamp is skeptical of the received wisdom in science. He won\u2019t stop asking a simple question: \u201cBut, is this true?\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to the Dutch government\u2019s calculations of ammonia and\u00a0nitrogen<\/a>\u00a0oxide deposition\u2014the basis of\u00a0climate<\/a>\u00a0mandates that would slash livestock numbers and put many farmers out of work\u2014Hanekamp is especially critical of \u201cthe science.\u201d<\/p>\n

He thinks it relies on vague definitions, excessive deference to expert judgment, and a narrow focus on costs rather than both costs and benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now treat farmers as polluters, end of story, which is a very strange perspective,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hanekamp, an associate professor of chemistry at University College Roosevelt in the Netherlands, made the comments in an interview with Roman Balmakov, host of EpochTV\u2019s \u201cFacts Matter<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2019 Dutch court decision that hindered the construction of livestock facilities triggered an earlier round of protests by farmers.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0Science article<\/a>\u00a0on the protests described some of the harms attributed to nitrogen emissions: \u201cIn 118 of 162 Dutch nature reserves, nitrogen deposits now exceed ecological risk thresholds by an average of 50 percent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn dunes, bogs, and heathlands, home to species adapted to a lack of nitrogen, plant diversity has decreased as nitrogen-loving grasses, shrubs, and trees move in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNitrogen chemicals are nutrients\u2014you need them for growing plants,\u201d Hanekamp said.<\/p>\n

Hanekamp believes the government has focused on nitrogen almost to the exclusion of other factors that affect nature, such as the location of groundwater relative to the surface.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dutch farmers are protesting against what they see as harsh measures to cut down nitrogen emissions. (PMVfoto\/Shutterstock) Dutch Nitrogen Scientist Questions the Basis of Government Climate Mandates ‘We now treat farmers as polluters \u2026 which is a very strange perspective’ Jaap Hanekamp is skeptical of the received wisdom in science. He won\u2019t stop asking a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[299,33017,1479,4574,23166,16350],"class_list":["post-63074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-liberty","tag-farming","tag-nathan-worcester","tag-netherlands","tag-nitrogen","tag-nitrogen-pollution","tag-the-epoch-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63075,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63074\/revisions\/63075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}