A Walk in the Dying Woods

To acquire knowledge, one must study;
but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.

~ Marilyn Vos Savant

Once again a story has surfaced about urban trees dying, purportedly from leaking natural gas pipelines around their roots.  Some folks are hoping to win awards or settlements from energy companies.  Bob Ackley, a self-described “gas leakage specialist” started out in Boston and has since apparently managed to receive enough support to expand to a six-person team funded by Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment.  He has moved on down to Washington, DC, as pictured above.  This transparent scam conveniently ignores the fact that trees which are not anywhere near gas lines, leaky or intact, are in just as poor health as those that are.  But, I guess people notice trees dying in those areas first, because they are developed, and it costs the municpality money to remove them, and so they look for the most proximate cause.  The only part of the article that doesn’t miss the point is this sentence:  ”Gas leaks contribute to smog”.  Methane is an ozone precursor.

Fortunately, readers of Wit’s End have exceptional powers of observation.  These pictures of leaves and bark were shared by Chet, who is finding injured foliage around Seattle.  I’m always grateful to find that there are at least a few who aren’t taken in by the usual rogues’ gallery of blame – chemtrails, Fukushima, Deepwater Horizon, road salt, cell tower radiation, invasive insects, disease, and fungus…oh, and the Second Coming of Christ.  There is so much irrefutable research about how air pollution is particularly toxic to plants – and there’s absolutely no question that the invisible but highly toxic background level of tropospheric ozone is inexorably rising – it boggles the mind that people cling to improbable, if not impossible, sources of weakened immunities and premature mortality.

I suppose I shall have to write to the gas companies and the researchers and the litigants about the gas leaks…AGAIN.  This has become a tiresome game of whack-a-mole.  I already contacted all the interested parties and reporters in 2010 upon first learning about the lawsuit, and posted one chronicle of our correspondence here.

I got nowhere with that so I wrote to the various newpaper editors and town officials.

Nobody replied to that either, even though the motives of Ackley and his lawyer are barely disguised…as I observed:

He was quoted as saying “Statewide, there could be somewhere between $15 billion – $30 billion in damages.” Hmmm…according to the terms of the Trust, it (it being Ackley and Schlichtmann, remember) retains 40% of anything they help the towns to recover from National Grid. So, if they held National Grid fully accountable that means a potential of billions in legal fees for the “Trust”.  Billions!!

The following video, so kindly made to share with readers of Wit’s End, was made in Virginia.

 
I finally got around to writing the scientist who produced this map, taken from NASA satellite data, which documents the decline in vegetation in the Eastern US from 2000 to 2010.  Unsurprisingly, they corrolate this decline with drought from climate change, even though according to numerous studies, the northeast has become wetter, not drier.

 Do we see any corrolation – ANY AT ALL – with this 2007 map of ozone levels?

Incredibly, the list of polluted places doesn’t include Fukushima – which will probably be uninhabitable, approximately, forever.  It did include places in China, but I saved that for the following film version, parts One and Two below – and/or, you could click on this link to an article in the Atlantic that has the unspeakably cynical scene above, as well as interactive photos showing before and after images.  Some of them fade in and out, from times of reasonably good visibility…

 …to murky.

It makes me wonder why so few people understand that ozone precursors are flowing across the globe like a tsunami of highly reactive poison, leaving dead trees in its wake.