Episode 367. Claudia Wagner-Riddle is an agrometeorologist; she studies how agriculture affects climate change — both the production of plants and animals. The quality of soil is a key factor. Various essential bacteria in the soil produce nitrous oxide and other compounds of nitrogen, which plants require, but which affect air and water negatively in several respects. By recycling animal manure, farmers can adequately replenish the nutrients in their soil, but about half of the people on the planet today are alive because they eat food produced by synthetic fertilizers, which have been seriously mis-used and are causing climate problems as well as other environmental stresses. And the ruminant animals (notably cattle and dairy cows) also emit methane in the process of digesting grass. These are complicated problems to solve, and Wagner-Riddle does not favor the widespread proposal to end the maintenance of cows.