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"A forest is a pristine environment..." Hmm, is that really so? The forest air is also full of pollen, fungal spores, viruses and bacteria, all kinds of volatil
by shellfishgene 2y ago
"A forest is a pristine environment..." Hmm, is that really so? The forest air is also full of pollen, fungal spores, viruses and bacteria, all kinds of volatile organic molecules and so on. The terpenes mentioned as problematic come from conifers after all.
- lm28469 2y agoThings we had hundreds millions of years to evolve with and adapt too... now we have brake pad dust and haribo strawberry flavored candles
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoWould the world be a better place if we had brake pad dust flavored candies? I like to believe so.
- zemvpferreira 2y agoI'm pretty allergic to all those things so I'm going to disagree with your implied preference and take the haribo and brake pad dust all day.
- jjk166 2y agoThere weren't many North American conifers on the African savannah when humans were evolving, and our ancestors' reproductive success was not generally affected by air quality. We haven't evolved immunity to things like volcanic gasses which have been around forever. Many plants deliberately evolved to produce toxins. A few of these we find delicious specifically because we did not co-evolve with those plants. Natural = safe is a bad heuristic.
- amluto 2y agoNot just conifers. In Los Angeles, liquidambar trees are planted all over for autumn color, and it turns out that they’re an enormous contributor to smog formation.
- hinkley 2y agoAnd male trees upping pm because they’re lonely and looking for love.
- amluto 2y agoTo be fair, those are large particles, which are neither as dangerous nor as persistent as smaller particles. Unless you’re allergic to them, of course.
- hinkley 2y agoPM2.5 is the really nasty carcinogenic stuff, but pollen size overlaps substantially with other forms of soot and IIRC is a double digit percentage of poor urban air quality. It’s somewhere around fourth or fifth largest source.