Majority of trees in NYC could be making air quality worse: Columbia researchers
Allison Gatz
September 24th, 2024
Link to news article1: https://nypost.com/2024/08/05/lifestyle/majority-of-trees-in-nyc-could-be-making-air-quality-worse-columbia-researchers/
Link to academic journal article: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.4c00495
Majority of trees in NYC could be making air quality
worse: Columbia researchers
Isoprene
is a biogenic volatile organic compound (VOC) that is present in most trees in
New York City. Although isoprene itself
is a gas, it can undergo oxidative reactions with OH radical to form epoxydiols
of isoprene or methacryloylperoxynitrate in under low or high NOx
conditions respectfully, making it a secondary organic aerosol. These reactions
form hydroperoxides, increasing ozone formation.2 Increased levels of ozone can be detrimental
to lung health so it is imperative to research and report factors that affect
ground level ozone.3
The
Commane Research group at Columbia studies atmospheric chemistry- specifically New
York and Arctic atmospheric methane and carbon monoxide. In July, this group published an article in Environmental
Science and Technology describing their modeling method for isoprene in New
York City. Through using the Model of Emissions
of Gasses and Aerosols from Nature (MEGAN), the group reports that a larger
than predicted isoprene emissions exist from trees in the New York area. This modeling system involves using a satellite
to collect data and box modeling to draw conclusions. The group considered a variety
of variables in their study such as time of year and urban ecosystem (ie. street
or park trees). They also noted the limitations
of their modeling system including lack of tree emission data from private yards,
the stress different trees undergo based on local ecosystem, and canopy
environments. After collecting data, the
group compared their values to the Biogenic Emission Inventory System and noted almost
twice as much isoprene was found using their modeling system across the five Burroughs. Another primary conclusion of this work is
that on hot days in New York City, biogenic VOCs contribute to more ozone
production than anthropogenic VOCs. Finally,
the group concludes by recommending that cities consider the downsides of
planting certain types of trees.
The New
York Post wrote an article about this research focused primarily on the
implications of the work rather than the “nitty-gritty: of the modeling systems
used by the Commane group. Starting with the positives of this news
article, the news article did include some quotes from the research team about
the main implications of their work. I
think including quotes from scientists makes the research more credible and
humanizes the scientists behind the work.
The article also includes a little bit of information about how isoprene
and NO can cause ground level ozone which is easy for readers to understand. In
my opinion, those are the only positives about this New York Post article.
As for
the negatives, this New York Post article does not accurately describe most
of the data included in the Commane et. Al. article, the research article is
not properly referenced, and the way in which the article is written promotes
an “anti-environmental” stance. To start the title of this article (“Majority
of Trees in NYC could be making air quality worse in NYC”) depicts Trees as the
primary problem for ground level ozone rather than NO emissions from cars. Although about halfway through the article,
the author reports that NO emissions react with isoprene to create ground level
ozone, the rest of the article focuses on isoprene being the culprit for ground
level ozone production. This news
article does not include any of the statistical modeling methods that the
Commane article reported. Although the
average reader does not need a large series of graphs and complicated modeling systems
explained, it would be valuable to include a few figures depicting how MEGAN
was used to gather this isoprene emission data.
The author chose to include a variety of pictures of trees in New York
City parks with subtitles like “Trees in Manhattan and Queens are most vulnerable”
(Figure 2) rather than one of the various bar charts Commane et Al. included in
their research. Furthermore, the
research article is not directly referenced in the New York Post article
but rather a link to a Columbia published article about the groups research.
My
other main critique of the news article is the negative tone that is set
throughout the article. The Commane
group presents the nuance of their work by stating that tree cover is important
but aerosol presence, caused (partly) by isoprene emissions, is also important
to consider. Scientists also remain headstrong
in the fact that curbing vehicle emissions is the best way to reduce ground
level ozone. On the other hand, the New York Post article reports this
research in a way that there is no way to fix the ground level ozone
problem. The penultimate sentence of the
news article is extremely pessimistic: “Although researchers note the city is
making some headway in reducing nitrogen oxides from exhaust and man-made
pollutants, it would take up to 80 years to see some real improvement.” This quote promotes the concept that the
average human can do nothing to stop ground level ozone from forming, further driving
the divide between scientists and non-scientist divide. One of the comments under the article goes so
far to say “So apparently now some trees are “bad” for us, according to these
so-called experts”.
For these reasons, I rate this news article a 2/10. The only reason this article is not a zero is because they do report on a scientific finding and include a few quotes from the scientific researchers.
1) Wei, D.; Cao, C.; Karambelas, A.; Mak, J.; Reinmann, A.; Róisín Commane. High-Resolution Modeling of Summertime Biogenic Isoprene Emissions in New York City. Environmental Science & Technology 2024, 58 (31), 13783–13794.
2)Surratt, J. D.; Arthur; Eddingsaas, N. C.; Chan, M.; Loza, C. L.; Shu, A.; Hersey, S. P.; Flagan, R. C.; Wennberg, P. O.; Seinfeld, J. H. Reactive Intermediates Revealed in Secondary Organic Aerosol Formation from Isoprene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2010, 107 (15), 6640–6645.
3) United States Environmental Protection Agency. Health Effects of Ozone Pollution | US EPA. US EPA.
The author of this article is purely going for the clicks. There is even a general statement that "no one believes anything put out by Columbia anymore" in the comment section posted by one of the readers. Instead of distrusting the news platform, the reader is misdirected to think that the university was the main blame... I agree with your rating and reasoning, and I think they should not infuse a such negative tone into the article, which only shows the inability of their editors to simply present the findings. They twist the conclusion of the publication: "[we] suggest cities develop tree planting palettes that consider the trade-offs between the cooling benefits of trees and their potential influences on air quality to optimize the benefits of tree planting efforts on both temperature and air quality" into "Oh yea trees are bad actually, said by not us but the Columbia people". Going into Alex Mitchell's profile, which is the reporter who wrote this article, I found that he produces on average 2-3 articles a day, often use the title "I'm xxx, and this is why..." to intentionally take other's persona and share something that is "breaking". This article presents almost nothing from the publication, and its overall structure sadly aligns with Alex's other info-less articles.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your comment. I think the author of this article posts mostly for clicks rather than to construct a meaningful article that informs the public of important topics. With the rise of technology, there is so much "news" being produced. Because journalists' performance is often judged on how many people are choosing their article over one of the million other articles published on a given day, they are forced to write in a way that will get public interest rather than accurate information.
DeleteI agree with your note of how negative the news article seems to be. The title seems to be very "click-baity" and the article only hints in the beginning that isoprene is involved in ozone formation before stating that the real issue is isoprene reacting with nitrogen oxide is the real issue that needs to be addressed, though in a very pessimistic and dismissive manner. The news article completely misses one of the takeaways of the journal, which is that one way to mitigate increasing ozone concentrations would be to plant non- or low-isoprene emitting trees. This is an example of "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" and how important science can be for instating policies. No one is saying that planting more trees is bad, but we need to consider larger implications of something as simple as planting a tree, as it can contribute to more harm if we don't consider or even refuse to entertain the idea of lowering NOx levels.
ReplyDeleteThe article does not talk about the solutions to this problem, involving planting more maple trees and driving personal vehicles less, but rather focuses on how scientists are reporting that trees are bad for the environment to drive the views up on this specific article. I doubt that the journalist who wrote this article read the actual Environmental Science and Technology article, but rather read the brief statement from Columbia.
DeleteI agree with your assessment of the article. The New York Post article has a very negative tone and promotes an “anti-environmental” stance. Also, it seems like the author of the New York Post article did not reference the original research paper and instead picked statistics and quotes from the EurekAlert! release on the paper. The quotes from the researchers were taken from the news release and so was the way the statistics were presented in “...isoprene levels in Manhattan will surge about 140% with a 30% boost in ozone” and others. Additionally, the research paper did not mention asthma or bronchitis unlike what the article claimed. The more the level of separation between the original research and a news release, the more possibilities there are for the information to be misconstrued, which clearly happened in this article. I think that the EurekAlert! news release did explain that the research from the paper does not mean that we should cut down on green spaces/trees, which makes it even more clear that the author of the article cherry picked information and did not put time into properly representing the research.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, I think it would have been a better written article if the author looked at the actual scientific article rather than a secondary news source reporting on the Columbia research group. I took a look at the EurekAlert! page and noticed they included the following disclaimer: "AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system." which further drives the misinformation presented in the New York Post article.
DeleteThis new york post article jumps to some wild conclusions. I totally agree with your analysis that although they do report some correct statistics and credit research authors from Columbia, they present it in a way that creates heavy bias and skews reader's ideas of what the data should be telling us. I believe that this article is incredibly harmful in the way that they take an anti-environmental stance and frame trees as the culprits to city air pollution, ignoring the fact that trees don't normally cause pollution but only in the presence of vehicles (who almost always emit pollution). Part of me finds the article humorous, and I'm sure other environmentally-conscious people would as well because the idea is so ironic, but for the average American who might not understand environmental/climate processes, this piece would be incredibly harmful to read because it could mislead the audience to coming to the conclusion that deforestation is a good thing. This research from Columbia does introduce a novel and intriguing concept about city environments and machine-ecosystem interactions, and if it had been explained more eloquently this article could have made for a very enticing read. As the article is, I agree with your rating of 2/10 because just stating true facts doesn't make something a good article--the best scientists are the ones that can explain findings in a way that is accurate and understandable to the public, and this article does not do that.
ReplyDeleteAs a reader who is pretty well versed in environmental systems and is aware how ground level ozone is formed, I also find this article humorous and outlandish; but I can also see how someone with a lower education level might believe this to be true. I think that with the growth of technology, there is a clearly line of communication between scientists and non-scientists which is good. However, with large amounts of information being presented to non-scientists, non-scientists can pick and choose which science news fits their perceptions of the world and the way in which science is presented highly influences those perceptions.
DeleteI agree with your 2/10 rating, Allison. The news article did sporadically mention the correct information, such as the brief sentence about NOx emissions being the real culprit over isoprene emissions, but the overall tone of the authors words were very anti-envoronmental, and to an extent anti-science. Especially from a scientific communication perspective, this news article is like many others in that it ignores the nuance and runs with the most shocking conclusions/findings. It is understandable why the authors felt like this was an important conclusion, but I definitely think journalists, especially journalists who report on scientific findings, should be held to a higher standard than this. The urgent tone of the article is not unfounded, but it should be at least directed towards the real culprit: NOx emissions. If the article had had a similarly pessimistic tone about vehicle and building emissions, the non-scientific community might be more inclined to think more critically about their own vehicle's or building's emissions.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that not enough was mentioned about vehicle emissions. The scientific article talked primarily about their VOC modeling system and the implications of the results being that some trees in New York are causing this problem, so it would also be better for the news article to focus on that aspect of the research rather than the "anti-environmental" undertones
DeleteYour analysis is really insightful and highlights an important gap between scientific research and public communication. You've done a great job identifying how the media can misrepresent complex environmental issues by oversimplifying the science. I agree that the headline of the New York Post article is not great. Focusing on trees as the primary problem distorts the bigger picture, especially when NOx emissions from vehicles are a more significant contributor to ozone pollution.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciate how you point out the value of including some data visualization or an explanation of the modeling methods (like MEGAN) to help readers grasp the depth of the research. Simplifying too much can dilute the science and lead to misunderstandings, as evidenced by some of the reader comments you mentioned.
Overall, your rating of 2/10 seems fair, as the article at least acknowledges the research but fails to communicate its intricate conclusions responsibly.
I think there needs to a better balance between the complex scientific publication and the oversimplified New York Post article: there is a way to explain complex science to a less knowledgeable audience. This specific journalist was not focused on capturing that nuance but rather trying to get people to click on his article with its catchy title.
DeleteI think the title of the article is completely mis-leading. When I read the title first time, I was surprised and curious to read about it and I think that is the reason they have put such title to gain attention of the public and have views. And I totally agree with you Alison that after reading the article it seems like they are saying that there is no way to reduce ozone layer depletion, making trees the culprit rather than pollutant emission from vehicles.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it would have been nice to see some of the research methods highlighted instead of just focusing on the negative.
The article could present a balanced story of improving air quality without making trees the only culprit.
Looking at the comments of the article proves that it's quite anti-environmental.
I agree with your 2/10 rating for the NYPost article. The quote that rubbed me wrong was "After analyzing satellite imagery that combined with Parks Department data, the research team found that local trees played a role in ozone creation during hot days. But they maintain it’s not empirically the trees to blame — but instead what their organic emissions are mixing into." The verbiage of "but they maintain" feels very accusatory toward the scientist's interpretation of their data. Additionally, the photos in the article are simply stock photos of trees, rather than graphs or or other data for readers to interpret. The sense of doom the article imparts is also concerning: The 80 years figure, as you mentioned, as well as the quote about the lack of quick fix, is concerning in that it encourages readers to give up and accept climate change.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your rating of this article. It seems very click baity to me and a clear gap between scientific communication and public communication. The author of this article seems to not be having a great time while writing this which is pretty funny. I dont see why the date could not of presented in a more clear and positive attiude. Making trees look like the bad guy when talking about air pollution is strange when coming from a non-scientific point of view. Overall not the best article but great description.
ReplyDelete