:rofl:
Smog formation requires two major precursors - photoreactive hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides (NOx - nitric oxide + nitrogen dioxide).
Terrestrial ecosystems release *some* hydrocarbons but virtually *NO* NOx.
Trees and plants do *NOT* cause photochemical smog on their own - they need fossil fuels, cars and industrial furnaces to do that.
Anything else is right wing pseudoscience.
:puke:
BTW: smog significantly reduces photosynthesis in plants - and volatile hydrocarbon production...
Trees and volcanoes cause smog! (More myths from the "Wise Use" movement). (anti-environmental movement)http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-17981214.htmlWise Use movement spokesperson Dixy Lee Ray stated in 1993 that the interaction between sunlight and plant hydrocarbons created ozone. Forests would be more polluted than cities if trees caused air pollution. Ray had previously claimed that ozones created by human activity were dangerous.
As I drive to work each day, there is a point on the Ventura Freeway, just before it drops into the lower parts of the San Gabriel Valley, where I am treated to a panoramic view of much of the Los Angeles basin. Almost invariably, the vista includes a layer of brown air hovering close over the horizon. This casts (to indulge in a pun) something of a pall over my spirits.
However, according to the anti environmentalist "Wise Use" move meet, I really have nothing to worry about. Smog, after all, is little more than a minor irritant. I have this on the authority of none other than the late Dr. Dixy Lee Ray, who in her final years was an officer of the Mountain States Legal Foundation (that creation of Joseph Coors which gave us James Watt, Ronald Reagan's bad choice for Secretary of the Interior, and Ann Gorsuch, Watt's bad choice for head of the Environmental Protection Agency) and an enthusiastic spokesperson for the "Wise Use" movement. Speaking on a talk show on religious radio station KKLA in 1993, Dr. Ray reassured a caller in the following exchange:
<snip>
While she was speaking of only two of the many pollutants in the chemical soup that people breathe each day in southern California--hydrocarbons and ozone--Ray, supposedly speaking as a scientist, was making the same old claim once made by Ronald Reagan: that smog comes from trees. Let's dissect Ray's remarks in some detail, starting with her assertion that ozone in the lower atmosphere is largely harmless. (Readers of this article should be warned in advance that I will be considering scientific issues in some detail. While this may be tough going for some, it is necessary in refuting the claims of the "Wise Use" movement.)
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