Pollution from Above

by Shane Crawford
(Auckland New Zealand)

If we don't change our ways soon, life as we know would be unbearable.

Here's an idea: Why don't everybody plant a tree every year for the next 20 years (that's 6 billion people planting trees) as trees absorb Carbon Dioxide and Carbon Mono-Oxide thus releasing Oxygen.

Then we can reduce "Global Warming" by ridding ourselves and our planet of old vehicles and replacing them with new energy efficient Hybrid Vehicles as well. It will also save you money on fuel costs.

Barry's Response - Thank you Shane. We need all the insight (pun intended) we can get. For a bit more about trees and global warming see the Global Warming and Rainforests webpage.

Read the Trees

I have an interesting question for you. How do trees tell us about global climate change? Dendroclimatology, where researchers analyze the characteristics of tree rings, can tell us a lot about how the organism lived.

Ring width is the most obvious tell-tale sign. Years with wider rings were better growing seasons for that specimen, and years with narrower rings were harder.

This can give us a good clue on a grand scale when varying species of tree are examined at different geographic locales, and compared to other methods of natural climatic record-keeping (such as soil layers and ice-core samples).

This is just one example of how environmental science becomes more interesting and revealing when multiple disciplines contribute data.



Shane, your tree idea has real roots. Nature's air scrubbers are trees. Long before hybrid cars were cool and carbon credits became a Silicon Valley side hustle, they've been consuming CO2 and exhaling oxygen.

You're right, trees matter. Let's make this canopy of understanding even bigger.

Pollution from Above

I don't just mean airplane trails or government-funded sky sprayers (though those are always good campfire stories) - I mean solar cycles, volcanic aerosols, El Niño, and the very structure of our atmosphere. The real biggies are air quality and climate.

Temperature inversions: what are they? Smog gets trapped near the ground until the next frontal system blows it away. Calgary, Los Angeles, and Beijing every winter. It's weather-style "pollution from above."

What about the sun? That's the old Sol. That blazing ball of hydrogen influences our climate. Let's look at sunspots and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation before we blame SUVs for every drought. Here's the twist

Tree Rings?

They don't just record CO2. Solar radiation, rainfall, and temperature patterns have been tracked since before cars and Greta Thunberg.

Get a tree. Hybrids are great. Hug a climatologist if you can. Ask the big, weird questions, too:
- What's the deal with modern warming and the sun?
- Are climate models based on rock-solid data or shifting assumptions?
- Fear is funded by who?

It's not anti-science to wonder. You're just being curious.

If you have something to say, I have space for you. Post it below. Search this site for more information now.