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Comment by rocqua | Hacker News Reader

> So something has to be done to lessen output of Ammonia and Nitrogen Oxides as they are destroying the local nature ecosystems.

I think a majority of people in NL would sacrifice the local nature (to some degree) to solve this crisis. The reason this isn't being done is because these are European rules. Which Dutch democracy cannot simply overturn.

Point being, it's European rules rather than concern for nature, that is the trigger.

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> I think a majority of people in NL would sacrifice the local nature (to some degree) to solve this crisis.

Maybe, but that is just because the farmers have a great PR machine going. It does not make sense to sacrifice local nature for an billion dollar industry that mainly (70%) produces for export. Its not like the Dutch food supply will suffer from this in any way.

It does not make sense to keep farming. But the extreme correction we currently have is not worth the nature tradeoff. Faith in our government is tanking with Groningen's earthquakes and the toeslagaffaire. Adding to this the government decimating many citizens who acted in good faith is not good.

We are stuck between the option of having a government being an untrustworthy partner, or breaking European laws and sacrificing nature.

> Adding to this the government decimating many citizens who acted in good faith is not good.

Is it really decimating citizens though? There's 35 billion euros available to compensate them. From what I've seen of the protests/blockades, it seems farmers are mostly upset they can't continue farming the way they currently do. I understand having to change your business practice and/or career sucks, but it's not the end of the world, and it has happened to millions of people that were working in declining industries before.

Furthermore, lots of Dutch farmers have a difficult future ahead of them anyway. Half of the farmers are over 55, and 30% of them don't have a successor lined up. To me it seems like taking the government buyout and retiring is a pretty good way out for them.

The "local nature" (barely anything left), has already been sacrificed for decades to this. For example, a large drop in insect populations has been recorded, likely because of intensive farming practices. So continuing to do this (apart from EU regulation) does not seem to me like it is very wise. Agriculture is also very dependent on some kind of local nature existing (think pollinators). If you don't care about nature at all, it will be a very dead place soon enough. We are also part of nature, after all.

Note that some of the nature areas are very much man-made. Generally they are the result of either over-farming or over-logging which really reduced the soil quality and gave space for species that can handle poor soil. That is making the impact of nitrous compounds much bigger because it fertilizes the soil which displaces the species used to very poor soil.

As for insect population, that is to do with pesticides, and horticulture. The farming problem causing these protests is nitrous compound emissions caused by keeping livestock. That is a totally different group of farmers.

> I think a majority of people in NL would sacrifice the local nature (to some degree) to solve this crisis.

The only crisis is that farmers have known for years they're absolutely major polluters and something would have to give, and as far as their concerned what has to give is the country.

> Point being, it's European rules rather than concern for nature, that is the trigger.

Bullshit.

The EU set aside money for financing nature reserves in member countries. The netherlands were happy to apply for 150 of them or so, and take the money.

We applied for these rules decades ago. Now, we regret that, and I presume we would be willing to pay back the money to roll back the application. If we got more money from the areas than we are now willing to spend on solving this, that would be a separate outrageous government decision.

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