Nitrogen pollution is a significant issue facing the environment: Across the U.S. and many parts of the world, large scale farming operations are applying excessive amounts of fertilizers and the unprecedented excess of nitrogen resulting from these farming practices contributes to coastal dead zones, impaired drinking water supplies, degraded fisheries and recreational areas, and risks to human health.
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is working with InnoCentive, the global leader in open innovation solutions, to try to find and develop solutions to the this pressing environmental issue (especially from agriculture).
We recently launched the Eco Challenge Series – an initiative in partnership with InnoCentive to work with companies to identify a
nd solve environmental challenges. We recently took the first step by putting up rewards to solve two challenges related to EDF’s agriculture work.
On Wednesday, EDF’s first Challenge – EDF – Nitrate Capture System – to reduce nitrogen pollution closed its submission period. In case you haven’t been following the progress, the challenge is an Ideation Challenge – the point was to gather as many possible great ideas as we could on a method for filtering nitrates out of irrigation effluent in tile drain systems.
The Challenge has a prize purse of $7500, and the final winning submission will be selected and posted at the end of August. The final tally: 244 people signed up to attempt to solve the challenge and we ultimately received more than 40 complete submissions. These 244 solvers are a part of InnoCentive’s global network of 250,000+ individuals representing 200+ countries world-wide.
This is an exciting step, and we are thrilled about the number of submissions that have come in. EDF plans to work with our internal staff as well as with external partners and colleagues to pick the submission with the best possible chance for dramatically improving the environmental footprint of nitrogen fertilization.
We’ll be providing additional updates on the process and the outcome as we proceed towards the final selection in August.
In the meantime, please consider becoming a solver! To do so, take a look at our pavilion and in particular the remaining nitrogen-related challenge to find a solution to farmers’ needs for good on-demand aerial imagery here. It has a purse prize of $15,000, and the deadline for submissions is August 13th.
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1. Hook up every machine at every Bally's, Lucille Roberts, Curves, etc., gyms to electric turbines, and pay people tax-free to use them. Especially in America this would help obesity!
2a. Cover — I mean cover! — Tornado Alley with wind turbines that can not just withstand tornadoes but will get more power from them than from just a windy day.
2b. Cover large swaths of desert with solar panels — this will also cool the planet.
3. Cancel and eliminate all car, boat and motorcycle racing, all demolition-derby and monster-truck orgies, all air shows, etc., etc., which burn up huge amounts of fuel for nothing more than our jollies.
4. We have Cash for Clunkers, so set up similar programs to encourage people to buy mopeds, motorcycles, Segue's, etc.
5. Desalinate lots of sea water — our oceans are rising, so there's plenty of supply.
5a. Give the seas' salt, which has lower sodium, to junk-food companies, etc., so we won't have to mine it.
5b. Purify some sea water for people who have none to drink.
5c. Use the rest of the seas' water to irrigate the Earth's deserts, all of which have been expanding for decades — if we can get oil down from Alaska, we can get water anywhere. But leave large sections of desert for solar panels as well as the wildlife that likes the desert.
5d. In those irrigated deserts grow ethanol-producing plants to help energy and global warming, and golden rice, etc., to help hunger too. We could also grow…
6. Dare I mention it? Industrial hemp! Why not replace half our tobacco crop with that? Isn't the government already growing *acres* of THC-laden hemp for the — what is it, ten? — people who have government approval to use it? Hemp oil burns cleanly and very hot, so it would help the energy crisis too.
It takes over ten times the amount of farmland to feed a population if you put the grain through a cow first before you eat it. If we could open and enhance communication between nutrition scientists and the public without the horrendous distortions, lies and myths created by the meat and dairy industries, you could virtually eliminate global warming, save the Brazilian rain forests, and MUCH, MUCH more. Even you, the person reading this, thinks that being a Vegan is a cult. You wonder where they get their protein. Ask a gorilla or the cow itself, where it gets the protein. Protein is found in most foods grown from the ground, and excess protein, along with its saturated fats, is the cause of most of our modern, affluent diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, autism (yes, study the new study linking milk and autism–this may not even be released yet, but it is coming soon, as well as milk and prostate cancer), several cancers (animal protein has been shown to interfere with the body's ability to detect and destroy mutated genes.) Most of you reading this have probably not studied the legitimate information available on the advantages of not eating animal products because the meat and dairy industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars spreading misinformation that has worked. Try studying articles from Dr. John McDougall, Dr. T. Colin Campbell (The China Study and the new movie "Forks over Knives"). If we could convert more people to understanding the health, environmental, and compassion advantages of being Vegan, we could do a LOT to improve the world. Eliminate (through gradual reduction) cows, ranches, and dairy farms and convert them to growing vegetables and more and you can feed the whole world with a lot less methane released into the atmosphere and using 10% of the land. Return land to wilderness, prairies and rain forests. Reduce Health care costs. Be careful, the beef industry sued Oprah Winfry twice (five years each, almost destroyed her, lost both times) because she said on her TV show that she would never eat hamburger again after hearing how it was made. She vowed not to speak against the beef industry again, EVEN THOUGH THE COURT FOUND HER STATEMENT TO BE ACCURATE AND BASED ON THE TRUTH.
My call to challenge is to fight the meat and dairy industries for the right to truthfully discuss the dangers of eating animal products (which, of course, includes seafood, chicken, pork, goose liver pate, cheese, etc.) Think of the pollution caused by these industries, compared to growing beans. Most people will not suddenly stop eating animal products, but at least they deserve an unhindered access to the truth without news media bias so that they can start to reduce the exorbitant consumption of animal protein and thus reduce the incredible environmental damage caused by these industries. There is no plus side to eating animal protein except taste, and with good training, cooks have developed some wonderful vegan menus. I am not talking about eating just lettuce and tomatoes. I am talking about a fine variety of wonderful foods, flavors and spices.
Remember, for every acre cultivated and fertilized, most of it goes through a cow first. Eliminate that and you eliminate the fertilizer, or just feed more of the world by exporting it. As more people become vegan, you will sell more grain directly to people, but you will still need only a fraction of the land to do it.
Let me know if you need more data, references, experts, etc.
Very sincerely,
Cathy Church