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Comment by arpa | Hacker News Reader

Why would you say that?

Well, they are a major source of smog in some areas. They emit quite a bit of hydrocarbons(https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4612-3296-4_...).

They also kill quite a number of people every year by dropping heavy things onto their heads.

Grandparent poster is quite likely a loon, but hey, no reason we can't use it as a starting point to discuss things.

I am a loon, but my comment was a joke / ironic. I'm a tree lover. I love to sleep on a hammock suspended between two trees in the forest. I've heard of a person that fell of a tree while climbing and died, another reason for being careful with the trees.

>Well, they are a major source of smog in some areas

I'm skeptical of this. Are you saying there's a forest somewhere that's giving people asthma attacks?

Pollen, I believe, is that they're referring to.

PBS Terra on YouTube recently did an episode about the blue haze over forests in (IIRC) Tennessee. Trees emit VOCs that make the air hazy. The blue haze from trees was being replaced by brown haze from industry.

Maybe tree smog is safe to breathe, but trees do create smog in at least some places.

Maybe he's referring to pollen? IDK, just guessing. I assume even if he's partially right that some species of trees are better than others.

Actually, trees can help clean smog.

https://www.lifegate.com/city-trees-smog-pollution

To make people think. Trees are a common symbolic representation of a female principle (hollows!). Why on earth would people deforest land in the first place.

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