DEVIL NITROGEN

The enviro attack upon the periodic table continues to expand - fed largely by unprincipled "scientists" who hope to receive oodles of your tax dollars if only they can cry wolf loudly enough for equally unprincipled politicians and bureaucrats to hear.

"Tallying Nitrogen's Increasing Impact" by C. Milot, Science Naps 151, No. 7 February 151997, based on the claims of a "team of Stanford University ecologists" is classic. They manage to blame nitrogen fixation from human activity for global warming, ozone deple- tion diminishing biological diversity, smog, acid rain polluted water, and damaged soil (defined as soil that grows more plants). Stanford, an institution overflowing with tax subsidies, already has provided us with Global Warmer Schneider and Population Bomb Ehrlich. Agricultural nitrogen fixation by farm technology is the primary reason that Ehrlich's predictions of global starvation have been 100% wrong.

Their primary strategy is to play upon the inherent human fear of change - especially change that people do not understand. With tax-financed schools pumping out armies of students who have been taught just enough of the words of science to hide their illiteracy under a coating of self-esteem, there is fertile ground in which to plant that fear.

The various enviro catastrophes cannot be sold on their merits, since they are just not occurring. All that can be sold is fear - fear that they might occur. The market for that fm depends upon ignorance.

Moreover, as the enviros seek to demonize world agriculture with false claims of its harm, they also overlook its enormous benefits - the vast increase in the quantity and quality of human life.