![Fertilizer and Climate Change | MIT Climate Portal](/6ky5vhl/675.jpg)
Fertilizer and Climate Change | MIT Climate Portal
Climate toll of fertilizers. One of the main nutrients that plants need to grow is nitrogen. But plants can't take in nitrogen from the air the way they can absorb carbon dioxide or oxygen. In the early 1900s, scientists invented a process to massproduce a nitrogencontaining compound, ammonia, that plants can absorb from the soil.