Ronnie Raygun got it right ..more than 25 yrs ahead of the "experts"...lol
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES - More than two decades after Ronald Reagan was widely derided for claiming trees cause more pollution than cars, scientists are continuing to assess the role forests play in creating smog
Reagan was lampooned by Democrats in 1980 for having claimed that 80 percent of air pollution was caused by plants and trees. Aides later said the then-presidential candidate had been misquoted and was referring only to certain types of pollutants, not to all air pollution.
The world's trees, shrubs and other plants do produce massive amounts of hydrocarbons - nine times as much as do vehicles, by some counts.
Those gases, most notably isoprene, are major ingredients of ozone, a lung irritant linked to asthma and other serious respiratory ailments.
"Not the trees' fault"
Ozone formation requires a second ingredient: nitrogen oxides, a byproduct of the combustion of fossil fuels. A major source of those gases is the tailpipe of just about every car, truck and bus on the planet.
Waft nitrogen oxides, NOx for short, over a forest of isoprene-emitting oaks in, say, the suburbs of Atlanta, throw in a little sunshine and ozone levels will spike.
"It's not the trees' fault we're throwing NOx at them," said Jose Martinez, an atmospheric chemist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
