Ozone and phytotoxic air pollution injured trees US West and Southwest.

 Air Pollution Kills Trees

While many of us look to rising ocean levels, and air temperatures for signs of global climate change caused by carbon emissions polluting our atmosphere, there are immediate, local, and regional signs of dangerously polluted atmosphere. Trees and plants, and their flowers and leaves, collect and trap many types of pollutants. Urban trees and plants suffer from the toxic effects of traffic (or roadway) dust; plus the ambient level pollution in the local and regional, air.
If anyone should want to see climate change in action, then look no further than your own yard, city park, or urban forest.

These photos make visible some of the drastic impacts on urban trees and plants from pollutants such as: ozone, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. Symptoms of ozone damage to plants range from slow growth to severe leaf browning, followed by premature leaf drop.

-Coral Tree, Erythrina, with spotted and browned leaves, signs of severe ozone damage, Santa Barbara, CA, May 9, 2012.

-Dead & discolored Magnolia leaves and flower petals, litter a well maintained lawn in Santa Barbara, CA, May 24, 2012

-Blossom deadfall from an unidentified flowering tree, litter a sidewalk and street gutter in Santa Barbara, California, July 20, 2012

-The leaves of an Aspen tree, with mottled burnt, curled edges, Flagstaff, AZ, September 21, 2012

 

Today's Phytotoxic-Quick-Scat-Poem 

Frack evil kill profit, trees of life.
Water, air, Earth.

Water your garden with acid rain.

Breathe our children with your emissions religion.
- dt lange

All photos (C) 2012 {D. T. Lange}