Yet, we don't often link the two. Sure, it would help the problem if in the next two days or so, emissions of particulates and air pollutants in China would drop by half. I would even patiently wait two months for such a reduction. If pressed, I might wait for two years. But, in the absence of the political willpower and consumer sacrifice required to achieve such a miraculous reduction in toxic air pollution, we might want to consider planting another acre or two (or three) of those interesting green things that stand out in the photograph.
Just one will produce enough oxygen each year to match what two human beings consume by breathing in that same year. Just one will consume about ten pounds of air pollutants every year and block immeasurable particulates from traveling to other cities and other places on our planet.
They are simple, common, numerous, everyday... Remarkable, Majestic green trees. By design, they are nature's vacuum cleaner and are equipped with the best HEPA air filter ever made. Their design goes well beyond anything Hoover ever imagined. And also well beyond anything we, who stubbornly continue to spew pollutants into the air we breathe and poison the planet we just happen to inhabit, could ever design.
With this knowledge in hand, we will apply our superior intelligence today, tomorrow, and the next day, well into the foreseeable future... to eliminating far more of these impressive air cleaning wunder machines than we plant.
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