Biogeochemist set to save the environment, educating all on the dangers of the nitrogen cycle
Schlesinger lit an environmental fire at Elon Wednesday, informing the audience of environmental risks we are bound to face in the future
By Sydney Williams
Disaster. A notion never thought to happen to us. This was the topic William Schlesinger, a former Duke Professor, sought to tackle when he visited Elon University Wednesday. He addressed students on what he calls “an even more present danger than global warming,” the nitrogen cycle.
An established professor and author, Schlesinger now resides as the president of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, which allows him and his team to continue scientific study, and as Schlesinger said, following the “belief that the next big problem our nation will face is the nitrogen problem.”
Schlesinger repeatedly presented the question, “Where does it go?” in regard to both industrialized nitrogen and natural nitrogen as well, in the first Voices of Discovery lecture series of the 2009-2010 school year. “Human population would not have grown to 6 or 7 billion had it not been for the development and proliferation of this reaction,” Schlesinger said.
Three major problems have arisen from industrialization of nitrogen. “As forests grow more rapidly, they take carbon dioxide in their woody tissue,” Schlesinger said. The forest growth is good because the trees clean the air and remove carbon. Schlesinger mentions the second major environmental problem, “the more and more nitrogen you give a give land surface, the more runs off to the sea.” Nitrogen usage is linked with the excess transportation of this element down the Mississippi River.
As excessive nitrate is found in ground water, it makes its way to well water, which becomes nitrate rich and unable for human consumption. “Distribution of contaminated well water coincides with areas making use of nitrogen-rich fertilizers,” Schlesinger said.
Schlesinger mentions denitrification as a key way to eliminate nitrates as an environmental danger. By using anaerobic soil bacteria, Schlesinger and his team hope to change nitrates to nitrogen gas in order to aid in decreasing environmental pressure.
When asked, “What are five things to remember about nitrogen?” Schlesinger simply says, it produces growth of living things; it’s in short supply, in the solid, natural form; creates more growth in forest systems. The over application of nitrogen fertilizer creates many difficulties in water resources; and denitrification bacteria might help in solving this problem.
