Does the word “pollution” evoke a passive response from you? I am embarrassed to say that before this article, “pollution” was an impotent word further weakened by its necessity – we depend on engines of all shapes and sizes to function in modern society.
After completion of research, “pollution” now elicits a bittersweet awareness, as it legions an invigorated ominous significance.
Every day of our lives, we obliviously inhale poisonous substances into our lungs – poisonous entities with devastating long term and/or immediate life-threatening affects.
The process of burning gasoline or diesel in our engines produces:
Toxic gases known as carbon monoxide
Poisonous nitrogen oxides, a main source of urban smog
Lethal unburned hydrocarbons, a main source of urban ozone
How toxic is carbon monoxide?
Gasoline and diesel, mostly carbon by weight, equate to 5-6 pounds (2.5 kg) of carbon per gallon. The U.S. alone releases approximately 2 billion pounds of carbon into the environment each day, and as it burns, it turns into massive amounts of invisible carbon monoxide gas.
If carbon monoxide released were solid carbon, it would be infamously noticeable, likened to throwing a 5-pound bag of dry cement out the window for every gallon of fuel burned. In the US, that would be equivalent to 333 million bags of dry cement spewed daily onto our roads and into our environment.
When we breathe carbon monoxide, the carbon molecules attach to our hemoglobin, taking up all the oxygen binding locations that are used to release oxygen to our lungs and other tissues in our body. With excessive exposure, our blood loses its ability to transport oxygen, thus inevitable death by suffocation.
How lethal is smog and ozone?
Nitrogen oxides and unburned hydrocarbons are main sources for smog and ozone. Ozone an “unfriendly” pollutant at ground level, is caused by the reaction between engine exhaust and light.
Inflammation and abnormal accumulation of fluid in our lungs, instigated by both smog and ozone, aggravates the effects of asthma and other respiratory problems. As repeated ozone exposure further desecrates our lungs, it becomes more difficult to breathe, and our bodies increasingly labor to extract oxygen. Years later, we can still experience tiredness resulting from the damage done to our lungs.
In addition, the corrosive nature of ozone damages foliage, including agricultural crops and forest vegetation, sources of oxygen for our environment.
But, what can we do? Engines are part of our daily lives.
Time for an emergency call to our Angel of Mercy, the Fuel Doctor!
The Fuel Doctor says help is available. Ironically, we can do something to alleviate these toxic, poisonous, and lethal effects with very little effort – something that will result in longevity, not only for ourselves, but also the earth and future generations of inhabitants — our children and grandchildren.
A small pill, the size of a penny, simply popped into the tank at each fill up, produces healthy detoxifying results. Independent tests showed that this little pill:
Reduced toxic carbon monoxide emissions by 78%
Reduced poisonous nitrogen oxides by 73% (main source of urban smog)
Reduced lethal unburned hydrocarbons by 24% (main source of urban ozone)
The Fuel Doctor highly recommends immediate proactive usage.
Known as the UBiee Power Pill, it guarantees to reduce identified toxic emissions, along with an added benefit of increased fuel economy and reduced maintenance costs – a welcome relief for soaring record high fuel prices.
**Attn Ezine editors / Site owners **
Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety in your ezine or on your site so long as you leave all links in place, do not modify the content and include the resource box as listed above.
About the Author
Dee Scrip is a well known and respected published expert author of numerous articles on PowerPill Fe3, Fuel Economy, Home Business, Business Opportunities, Fundraising, VoIP, VoIP Security, and other related VoIP issues.
http://www.free-pc-phone.com
http://www.thefueldoctor.com
Cottonwood “cotton” is flying/ Bad Company
Thomas Leo Ogren
I originally saw the question below posted in an Internet gardening forum and decided to answer it. It was a question I’d been asked many times before and I knew my answer would be useful in an article on springtime allergies caused by city trees. So I saved it to share with you here.
“Does anyone else here really suffer from allergies when the seeds of
Cottonwood are flying? I KNOW it is not the cottonwood but I am really
curious as to what is pollinating at the same time.”
Diana Pederson, Ingham County, Michigan, Zone 5, United States, author of Landscaping With Bible Plants:
That’s a very good question.
Around here, as the “cotton” (the seeds) of the female poplars (cottonwoods and aspens) and the willows is flying about, so is a good deal of pollen from different, unrelated species of trees. It is very common at this precise time that many people are suffering from extreme bouts of hay fever and often it is this “cotton” that gets the blame. Some city arborists refuse to plant female willows or poplars because of their firm (if mistaken) belief that this “cotton” is really some kind of pollen. But it isn’t pollen; it is seed. It is NOT what is causing the allergies at that time.
By the time the seeds of the female willow and cottonwoods are flying, pollen from the males of these two species is already spent. However this flying of seed coincides with pollen release of many allergenic plants.
Out West this is the same time that the millions of urban “fruitless” male mulberry trees are shedding their highly allergenic pollen. It is also the time that the olive trees are starting to release pollen. The cypress trees and shrubs are releasing very large amounts of pollen at this time too, as are the many male Ailanthus trees. At or about the same time the walnut trees are releasing a large amount of pollen, as are many species of hickory, butternut, and pecan. Perhaps the most pervasive at this point are the oaks, many species of which are still at this time covered with staminate flowers and just loaded with pollen.
At the same time that the female willows and cottonwoods are releasing all that harmless fluff into the air, the birch trees have just finished shedding large amounts of pollen, much of which is still lying around on the ground. In southern areas the alders often bloom twice (as will many birch and junipers) and the second bloom of the alders sometimes will coincide precisely with the flying of the “cotton.”
Also to take into consideration is that by the point in the year when the cottony seeds of the willows and poplars starts to float about, most of the male maples and male ash, and a large number of other trees and shrubs have already released their own pollen. Unless this pollen was washed away by strong downpours of rain, much of it is still lying about, and is still causing problems, weeks or sometimes even months after it was released.
To add to all of the above, at precisely this same time, the grasses start to release pollen. The ornamental landscape clump grasses all produce huge amounts of pollen at this time, as do most bluegrass species, bentgrasses, Bahia grasses, and especially Bermuda lawns that have not been kept closely mowed. By the way, the newer hybrid Bermuda grasses are sterile and pollen-free, but not the old common Bermuda lawns by any means.
By the time this poplar and willow “cotton” is in the air, many people with allergies are already starting to suffer from “systems overload.” There is so much pollen being released and so much just previously released, that it overwhelms the immune systems of many individuals. The result of course is allergy.
The sad thing about this whole affair is that all too often these female willows or female poplars, female cottonwoods, female aspens, they get blamed for the pollen from the male trees and then people cut them down! Since female trees have flowers that are electrically charged negative – (their roots are grounded) and since pollen from male trees picks up a positive + charge as they tumble about in the air, the two are mutually attractive. Female trees are powerful air cleaners, air scrubbers. Every female tree that is chopped down makes the air in that neighborhood that much more allergenic.
We need to protect our females!
About the Author
Thomas Ogren is the author of Allergy-Free Gardening, Ten Speed Press. Tom does consulting work on plants and allergies for the USDA, county asthma coalitions, and the Canadian and American Lung Associations. He has appeared on HGTV and The Discovery Channel. His book, Safe Sex in the Garden, was published in 2003. His website: www.allergyfree-gardening.com
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