January 6, 2003
SHOULDERS OF GIANTS:
Reagan was right: trees do pollute: Tree chemicals react with pollutants to cause smog (Tom Spears, January 06, 2003, The Ottawa Citizen)
CREDIT: Rich Lipski, UPI
Trees really do pollute, scientists say, citing tonnes of pollutants that evaporate from their leaves and vindicating the claim for which Ronald Reagan was once ridiculed.And the trees that contribute most to smog are, ironically, the fast-growing species planted in reforestation projects to help the environment, they say.
In 1981, Mr. Reagan told an astonished audience that "trees cause more pollution than automobiles do." Two decades later he's still wrong, but not quite as wrong as many people thought.
Next we'll find out that really was Grover Cleveland Alexander's desk in Tip O'Neill's office. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 6, 2003 9:54 AM
The atmospheric sciences group at GA Tech found out that in the spring the biggest contributor to air pollution in Atlanta was the growing trees. Not too surprizing with all the people hacking up pollen, but this came as quite a shock to the EPA.
Posted by: Tom Roberts at January 7, 2003 1:01 PMRemember when all the gas stations had to put in systems to capture gasoline vapors? This was to prevent smog, which is the product of reactions between hydrocarbons and ozone.
The hydrocarbon recapture systems did not reduce smog. Turned out trees and other urban vegetation produced all the hydrocarbons needed for the reaction to go to completion.
So now we have ozone-reduction measures to attack the smog problem. The requirement for hydrocarbon recapture is still there, of course. To remove it would be an admission of error.