Long-time Gormogon friend (and frequent stay at the Castle), EC writes in to point out that nitrogen is in fact a potentially bad thing in the wrong setting.

Your Czarness:

Excellent rant vis a vis the poseurs and their fashionable lifestyle, but I think you may have blotted your copybook in re: nitrogen. It’s not exactly inert in that it forms many compounds, of which many nitrates and ammonia compounds are used as fertilizers and other nitrogen compounds are vital to Life As We Know It. I think you may have meant to point out that it does not support open combustion and does Bad Things when present in internal combustion engines.

I humbly note that even Jove is reputed to nod, but you might wish to modify your article before GorT or the Mandarin chide you for the oversight.

До свидания. / YOS, EC

The Czar questions how obedient a servant EC is; Dat Ho, for example, never points out where the Czar understates basic chemistry. Dat Ho, of course, is soundly beaten by many of us here at the Castle. In fact, the other day, the mail carrier was beating a crouching Dat Ho for trying to grab the mail out of her hands. But we digress. As is our right.

This is classic liberal short-sighted thinking, that is, the inability to comprehend dominoes. Here is The Thing: yes.

The Czar would have welcomed an exposition from the original article authors on how nitrogren released into the atmosphere binds to form nitric acid (HN)₃, which in turn becomes part of acid rain. Nitric acid generally results from nitric oxide (NO) as follows:

NO_(g) + 1/2O_2(g)—>NO_2(g)

3NO_2(g) + H₂O—>2HNO_3(aq) + NO_g

The Czar shows the process only to shut the hippies up. And stop the Mandarin from drawing he same thing on the nearest whiteboard, drywall, or window. He appreciates the process. Basically, nitric oxide, which is made by internal combustion engines as well as simple industrial processes, combines with air to form nitgen dioxide; enough nitrogen dioxide can get together with water vapor in the air to make a lot of nitric acid. And that goes into acid rain.

But most of the NO in the air results from internal combustion engines, really. So a study showing that the ammonium nitrate fertilizers—used for a century around the world to turn deserts into farmland—could be dangerously raising atmospheric and drinking water toxicity levels? Well, that would be interesting.

Instead, the cited magazine article proceeds to lecture the audience on the benefits of the liberal lifestyle, with little or no explanation as to how billions of poor people are expected to fertilize their crops now. Ignorance of their plight cannot be claimed by the authors: indeed, they portray in very glowing terms the fact that ammonium nitrate skyrocketed the population of the world from a billion to six billion in a century, and that mortality rates plunged as the process became inexpensive.

This is classic liberal short-sighted thinking, that is, the inability to comprehend dominoes. So they recommend we buy locally grown produce? That puts the nitrogen in our water and atmosphere, rather than spreading it around. Further, it hurts the South American markets and creates more poor people, who then turn to more AN to produce cheaper crops to compete. And stop eating meat? And drive a hybrid? And where do you put these local farmlands? No doubt the authors have an opinion on restricting growth of developed areas and going back to agrarian times.

The Czar sees it differently. Fix the starvation problem. You can only do that by eliminating poverty, which will never happen while scumbag overlords stuff their own pockets at the expense of their downtrodden citizens. Et cetera. And that requires phat foreign policy skillz, which liberals by no coincidence suck at. Instead, they want legislation dictating us how to live our lives (capping nitrogen use and eating less meat) with no regard for the long-term outcome.

Please note that EC is not incorrect, and the Czar ain’t schooling him here. EC’s point was that nitrogen is not the most pointless gas in the atmosphere; it is very good at displacing oxygen and putting fires out (nitrogen is pumped into many airplane fuel tanks to prevent fire, and as EC points out, can interfere with your car engine working efficiently…or at all). But it does compose 79% of our atmosphere as it is! We would then agree that nitric oxide and nitric acid are potentially bad things that result from nitrogen—but the Czar would like to see numbers, please, on how many people will die from acid rain if we continue on our present course versus the number of people who will die of starvation if nitrogen production is capped. To which EC says, “Yeah!”

As is his right.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.