Netherlands Farmer Protests, European Union Nitrogen Regulations
Farmers in the Netherlands staged massive protests involving tractors that created over 700 miles of traffic jams to oppose new European Union nitrogen emission limits. The regulations threaten agricultural operations by restricting fertilizer use, which farmers argue is a one-size-fits-all policy that ignores local needs. Protesters breached police barricades in The Hague, drawing comparisons to the Yellow Vest movement in France.
netherlands· nitrogen· european union· farmer protest· fertilizer· ammonium nitrate· the hague
00:00 Kick him off Twitter! Adam Curry, John C. DeVora It's Thursday October 3rd 2019 This is your award-winning Gitmo Nation Media Assassination Episode 1178 This is no agenda Rockin' the red meat and broadcasting live from Opportunity Zone 33 The frontier of Austin Texas Capital of the drone star state In the morning everybody I'm Adam Curry And from Northern Silicon Valley where apparently it's still rush hour and remains so until about eleven Team John C. DeVorex You want to know about a real rush hour go over to the Netherlands see what's going on there the other day What oh you didn't see the farmer protest? No, I've gotten a big clue from the French. Oh even better though so the European Union decided that The Netherlands has exceeded its nitrogen quantity they're allowed to use
00:59 And by the way, the Netherlands I think has the same quantity limits as Germany and other countries much larger than them. So they said it's done you can't use any more nitrogen for the rest of the year just all done now maybe we should understand how important nitrogen is in farming for that we turn to our resident farmer John C Dvorak Yeah, nitrogen is one of the main components of all fertilizers. And in fact it's the nitrogen compound that means it most and when you buy some fertilizer sometimes see three numbers on there which is like something like 16 five and six or sixteen at max I think for nitrogen. And they refer to the levels of different nutrients but the most important one is nitrogen
01:55 I once had a bag of, and i don't have it anymore. I probably would be arrested because when I was working as an air pollution inspector, I worked at the fertilizer plant and so they gave me a bag of Straight up ammonium nitrate. You mix that with some water dip some paper in there and you got flash paper You could do a lot with it yeah, I don't know about what you just said but ammonium night ammonium nitrate is a It can be used to make explosives. ANFO bombs are one of the most easy to make, which is ammonium nitrate and fertilizer. I'm sorry, ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. You mix ammonium nitrate with some just cheap oil and put it in a... Well, I'm not gonna describe how you make the bomb but it's makeable
02:50 So I had this big bag of ammonium nitrate in the, and I think it was, I think the numbers on it were 16-0-0. It had nothing else in it. It was just pure ammonium nitrate and unfortunately the cellar flooded one day and... Oh! the bag got wet and then turned into one solid crystal ammonium nitrate. I mean, you could chip away at it if you wanted to. It's a handy product. Anyway by the way just to go on with this story, I was told that you take this pure straight stuff and then you can go to somebody like a big giant lawn that somebody has and you can spell out
03:28 screw you or something like that in with this with this night with you know, you have a little spreader and it will make this grass grow super green and super fast. And I'm like three feet high so it'll spell out whatever road is pretty funny idea now growing up just south of Amsterdam when I was young we lived in a farming community there was lots of this stuff around and what we used to do is we'd mix it with sugar, and then you have the right amounts but you'd mix it with sugar then water. Then you dip pieces of paper into the water let it dry And if you lit that it would go pfff Yeah It's like flashpaper Anyway What's cool about this in The Netherlands when it comes to the media story about this Is the Dutch name for nitrogen is stikstof
04:22 Which means choking stuff. I mean, it's a literal translation So whenever someone is talking about climate and oh my god we're hurting the earth And what are we going to do? And you're using choke stuff Oh no! This is not good But the farmers were not having it and they got all their tractors... ...and they tied up all of the highways this was Wednesday morning or Tuesday morning And they effectively created almost 700 miles of traffic jams. Nice! And the Netherlands, you know, at 700 miles you can go up and down back and forth a couple times. You can roam around in the country with that. So now The Netherlands is very sensitive to traffic because in fact
05:15 Although it's starting to change a little bit, for decades they would always mention the traffic on the news. Traffic and weather together! And they do it by length of the traffic jam so not how much time it would take but the actual length and it would be 5 kilometers 15 kilometers 20 kilometers you hear this every single morning every afternoon that the country is incredibly overcrowded or densely populated and there's a lot of cars and just not enough roadway so they're sensitive to it. So when this happens, it cripples the country and if the country was crippled for this day... And the farmers they went down to The Hague or came up where they were went westwards wherever they were coming probably from the from the east so they went westward and the... This is where the government in Netherlands had set up
06:07 barricades and fences because we have this very famous field called the Mali felt and that's where you can register and have an official demonstration. And you can stand there and go, hey, ho-ho what the F has got to go? But they didn't want any of this, it was not a registered protest. And the farmers... you know that's how stupid these people are! The farmers they roll up into the Hague after tying all the roadways They look at these fences and go pfff.... and just video after video plowing them down going right through them jumping just... You know he is a tractor, he is a sizable John Deere, you can do much against him They're like tanks
06:46 and the Dutch population from what I've been able to glean from following it are a stand behind the farmers. Like yeah, why are we letting these EU douchebags tell us what we can do? So they weren't wearing yellow vests but they might as well have been very good. Well where's this guy head though? It's not gonna go anywhere Oh! They'll do it again The farmers are famous in the Netherlands for doing... They are indeed the Yellow Vest of Holland They're very famous for their protests. And this... So let's back up to the reason for the protests, so they are given the same I guess managed amount or rations, they get the same rations? Ration! That's a good one. The wartime that have rations of their nitrogen supply and fertilizer supply let's say
07:38 They have their ration, they have to have the exact same amount as the other countries. Yeah well... It doesn't make any sense everybody grows different things they need different we have different requirements. Of course not! You can't have a one-size fits all for fertilizer Well that's exactly what they did and also since I'm the resident farmer yeah yes also What are the crop differences? There's gotta be some crop differences. And why are the Dutch using so much fertilizer, you think maybe they're abusing it, maybe they're using too much. Maybe there just is a lot of runoff involved. I mean sounds like they're ruining the place these Dutch. I don't think so but you asking questions that I can't answer
08:22 My question is, is nitrogen... I had not heard that this was a greenhouse gas. It's not a gas? No it's not! It's the gas in the atmosphere if you're just gonna say nitrogen N2 which is just the nitrogen molecule So I'm not sure exactly what it is that is a problem but Or maybe it's just harmonization so everyone is in line. Is it N2 or just plain N in the atmosphere? I think its just N, yeah. Anyway but the point is that nitrogen is a chemical that has nitrogen in it. Right right well look I don't know but all I can tell you is that it seems rather unfair
09:12 for the Dutch to be cut off with the same levels as other countries around them when they are just a different size country. I don't even know how you can equate... But they're so small, why would they need as much Germany? Well, I don't know! I really don't know but the point is they don't want Brussels telling him- Yeah, I know and the point is that they should do their own thing. Yeah, they don't want Brussels telling him what to do. Yeah well hello?! That's exactly the problem. Exactly the problem Which was very interesting and maybe we'll start, we were kind of laughing just before we started because we both had the exact same clip which you titled the bonus clip. It was a bonus clip but since mine is three seconds longer I think i'll
