'Trees filter the air'

[Simpo Two]

Or do they? I heard that phrase on the news, but wondered how they did it. Air enters via the stomata, and through the wonder of photosynthesis CO2 is converted to O2, but do trees really remove air pollution and if so by what mechanism?

[Simpo Two]

dvs_dave said:

Yes, they do, particularly Plane trees as they routinely shed their bark. Although the effect is marginal.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/do-londo...

Thanks; I know about plane trees, but they are the exception - most trees don't shed bark.

So I wondered if it was one of those pseudo-science soundbytes that sounds good but doesn't stand examination.

As for the BBC saying 'Plane trees do emit isoprene though, which combines with nitrous oxide in car exhaust emissions to produce harmful ozone' - do they? I can't find a reference to it.

Edited by Simpo Two on Wednesday 6th December 20:07

[Simpo Two]

welshjon81 said:

In essence, trees are composed primarily of carbon. Their mass is derived from the atmosphere, where they extract carbon from CO2 and subsequently release the oxygen component back into the air.

Indeed they do; once upon a time I could have drawn you a cross section of a chloroplast cell wall with all the proteins of photosynthesis in it and the accompanying biochemistry from CO2 to glucose. But the question here is whether they 'filter out' air pollution, and I remain unconvinced.

[Simpo Two]

Kawasicki said:

Trees pollute

https://www.insidescience.org/news/trees-may-becom...

It's interesting, but too woolly; too many 'mights' and 'can be's'. And that seems to be a problem with science these days - too much extrapolation and too much headlining with little significant support. Perfect fodder for the media (and those with vested interests) to make mountains from molehills and spray stuff around that can effectively be false or at best misleading.

[Simpo Two]

Kawasicki said:

Denier!

I was thinking about that word yesterday, which is inspired by the phrase 'holocaust denier'; ergo, a denier is in the same box as the Nazis and very bad. But there are other categories. As well as Denier I propose Accepter, Evangelist and Sucker; but it's best that fight stays on another thread

[Simpo Two]

Thanks to the genius of Amazon - how do they know? - this appeared in the 'stuff you might want' category...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08X2V5K28

[Simpo Two]

Kawasicki said:

The Amazon is actually a major source of methane, a very powerful greenhouse gas.

Well that's OK, just trap it and burn it as fuel. The resultant CO2 is much less effective as a GG...

Therefore we need to burn more methane. Bring on the cows! And when there's an excess of cows, we can eat them, which is an excellent repurposing of organic matter