50. Maarten Albers on the Nitrogen Crisis in the Netherlands

Challenging Climate

Our guest is Maarten Albers, a journalist who reports on agriculture and food for the Volkskrant, one of the Netherlands’ leading newspapers. In today's episode, we draw our attention to the 'nitrogen crisis' in the Netherlands - a major environmental story that has reshaped politics in the Netherlands and societal views on environmental regulation, science and technology, and even international relations.
Listen as we discuss why we should care about nitrogen in the environment, and what lessons we can draw from the nitrogen crisis happening in the Netherlands.
Links:

• Maarten's articles on de Volkskrant
• Interview on the nitrogen crisis, with Jan Douwe van der Ploeg, emeritus professor of agricultural sociology
• Check out this article on 'An organic farmer can also be a peak polluter'

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1. 50. Maarten Albers on the Nitrogen Crisis in the Netherlands (00:00:00)

2. Intro and background (00:00:36)

3. What is the 'nitrogen crisis' that's happening in the Netherlands? (00:01:15)

4. How does artificial nitrogen impact the environment? (00:03:10)

5. How did nitrogen pollution become a national crisis? (00:07:08)

6. How did the Dutch government try to resolve this issue? (00:09:52)

7. The 2019 court ruling and its implications (00:10:53)

8. How the nitrogen problem has affected Dutch politics (00:17:25)

9. Influencing societal views on science and tech, environmental regulation, and EU scepticism (00:21:58)

10. Has the EU stepped in to address this? (00:27:15)

11. Looking ahead: three lessons for climate policy (00:31:01)

12. Sympathy vs demonization (00:38:48)

13. Meat consumption (00:41:34)