When will the Netherlands disappear?

Re:When will the Netherlands disappear? by dtwest on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @10:56AM (#21826124)

I do not know the details, but it is my understanding that the Netherlands exports a large amount of its agricultural production. One could say, let's only produce what we need, and methane production will go down. However, if that was done, all of the countries that rely on the Netherlands for agricultural imports would need to increase production or find somewhere else that would. There is no guarantee that using country level caps will improve anything.

Unless I'm missing something, maybe it would be better to assign the emission penalty of a product to the consumer rather than the producer?

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Re:When will the Netherlands disappear? by Scarblac on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @11:42AM (#21826647)

Yes, and the Netherlands is an extremely good place for agriculture, with rich soil and very advanced technology. So if the world is going to produce this much, it's good for emissions to have it in the Netherlands.

But that is the whole world. I live in the Netherlands, and I don't want all of our nature to die, because I enjoy it and I want my children to be able to enjoy it. So I still want less production in the Netherlands.

Also because much of it is meat production, fed on imported soy from the other side of the world. And mostly for exporting. It must be possible to produce the meat elsewhere.

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Re:When will the Netherlands disappear? by Hercuros on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @12:32PM (#21827177)

Moving the production to a different country would be a solution, since the Netherlands is currently producing way more nitrogen per area of land than other European countries.

Moreover, our nature areas are generally smaller and closer to agriculture. Therefore, nitrogen output has (had) a lot more impact on nature here than in other countries.

More information can be found in this news article (Dutch): https://nos.nl/artikel/2307260-kan-de-ruime-duitse-stikstofn...

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Re:When will the Netherlands disappear? by Udik on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @12:39PM (#21827242)

> Moving the production to a different country would be a solution, since the Netherlands is currently producing way more nitrogen per area of land than other European countries.

Isn't this just because it is producing highly efficiently, at least in terms of land use? If you move the production elsewhere, it will consume the same amount if nitrogen on a wider area, so with worse impacts on wildlife and biodiversity.

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Re:When will the Netherlands disappear? by Hercuros on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @12:46PM (#21827309)

No, because the concentration is a big part of the problem. If things were more spread out, but with the same total amount of nitrogen, there would be less of an issue (and this is why Germany has less strict rules on nitrogen).

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Re:When will the Netherlands disappear? by Retric on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @11:04AM (#21826207)

The world has a large surplus of agricultural products which are often produced due to significant subsidies. So, it’s not clear production would increase to compensate rather than existing land being repurposed.

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Re:When will the Netherlands disappear? by SiempreViernes on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @01:01PM (#21827449)

Well, overall the Netherlands only gain 8% if you discount export related emissions, so it doesn't gain you a fantastic amount.

https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2

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Re:When will the Netherlands disappear? by tharne on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @11:03AM (#21826182)

This pretty much sums it up.

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Re:When will the Netherlands disappear? by NicoJuicy on Wednesday December 18, 2019 @10:58AM (#21826145)

Correct

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