# Canadian 'dopers, Freedom Convoy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 10, 2022, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-dopers-freedom-convoy/959186 "2022-02-10T00:07:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 837
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2022, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-dopers-freedom-convoy/959186/837 "2022-07-13T03:38:04Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I concede far more to the left of this board than almost anyone on that left is willing to concede to the right. Well, you kind of can’t avoid that when calibrating politics on a US-style left-right spectrum, since the left is far closer to a rational fact-based perspective than the right is. Sheesh, Sam, you want to pat yourself on the back for not being an out-and-out climate-denying Trumpist bigot, while complaining that the Board liberals aren’t making enough concessions to their climate-denying Trumpist bigot political opponents? That’s not as bipartisan a position as you seem to imagine. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Reducing nitrogen fertilizer by 30% will reduce crop yields by almost as much. Not necessarily, given [how much nitrogen is lost in typical fertilizer application, for example.](https://eos.org/articles/index-suggests-that-half-of-nitrogen-applied-to-crops-is-lost) > [@](#): > > Globally, nitrogen use efficiency is 46%, but the ratio should be much closer to 100% […] > > Just a 10% decrease in nitrogen fertilizer led to only a 0.6% yield reduction and cut nitrous oxide emissions and nitrogen leaching. I mean, I don’t disagree that some emissions policies may be too draconian for the current wartime situation and may have to be temporarily modified, and that Sri Lanka in particular made a bad mistake that was further severely exacerbated by the war. But you’re kidding yourself if you think that climate problems are going to be successfully addressed without causing sustained severe pain to a lot of people. Since [the Netherlands’ agriculture and environment have already started severely suffering from its catastrophic nitrogen excess,](https://www.science.org/content/article/nitrogen-crisis-jam-packed-livestock-operations-has-paralyzed-dutch-economy) what makes you think that the situation’s going to get any better if they just pretend the problem doesn’t exist for a while? > [@](#): > > Nitrogen crisis from jam-packed livestock operations has ‘paralyzed’ Dutch economy > Ecological damage from manure fumes triggers calls for drastic change to agriculture > 4 DEC 2019 […] > > Nitrogen, a key nutrient for plants, is also an insidious pollutant. Fertilizer washing off fields ends up in lakes and coastal areas, causing algal blooms that kill marine life. Airborne nitrogen can also harm ecosystems. One source is nitrogen oxides, mostly from power plants and engine exhaust. In the Netherlands, even more comes from the ammonia vapors from livestock urine and manure. […] > > The Netherlands is a nitrogen hot spot partly because it is a dense, urbanized nation, although controls on power plants and catalytic converters in autos have helped curb nitrogen oxide emissions. The bigger problem is ammonia emissions from concentrated livestock operations. Dutch farms contain four times more animal biomass per hectare than the EU average. Practices such as injecting liquid manure in the soil and installing air scrubbers on pig and poultry facilities have reduced ammonia emissions 60% since the 1980s, but they have risen slightly since 2014 because of expanding dairy operations. Dutch agriculture is responsible for nearly half of nitrogen pollution that falls in the country. […] ISTM that you’re trying to tell yourself a convenient story about the current crisis being all the fault of these awful awful “radical left” environmentalists, never mind that the crisis has already been here for a while and is inevitably bound to get worse. Your designation of “crazy” to mean “policy that results in severe problems and suffering” is blithely ignoring the fact that by that standard, when it comes to the climate situation, there aren’t really any non-“crazy” policies left. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > ‘Somehow’? I said exactly how […] I predicted on this board that it would embolden the worst actors in the world. But for some reason, you don’t seem willing to say that the policies of those “worst actors” are “crazy”. Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has caused huge suffering and immiseration for Russians, not to mention humiliating military and political defeats for Russia (including some of the NATO enlargement that Putinistas said the war was supposed to prevent). But you don’t criticize Putin for his bad choices: no, according to you it seems to be all the fault of other countries’ policy decisions for “emboldening” him. They’re the only ones you’re willing to hold responsible, at least. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > This has always been the effect of riots and street protests. They devastate the communities around them - some of which never completely recover. But, again, that doesn’t seem to bother you when “riots and street protests” are aimed at government policies you don’t like. According to you, any community “devastation” caused by protests against burdensome emissions policies is all the fault of the policies themselves, not the protestors. But any community “devastation” caused by protests against racist policing policies is all the fault of the protestors, not the policies. Yeah, I continue to think you’re not making a very convincing case for your own ideological evenhandedness here. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/canadian-dopers-freedom-convoy/959186)._