On Jan 29, 2009, at 8:31 AM, Charles Davis wrote: > But what gets me, is all the flack raised about anything that MAKES > Ozone.
Well, simply put it's like water. Absolutely necessary for life, but too much, or too little in the wrong places is bad. Ozone in the upper atmosphere blocks the harmful UV that would otherwise pretty much sterilize the surface of the planet. Close enough to a star like ours to be in the right temperature regime for life like ours means that the UV flux from the sun is extremely high, more than high enough to kill life as we know it. Ozone in the part of the atmosphere we breathe is bad. Ozone is a poison. It'll kill you dead in high enough concentrations, and it's one of the most reactive chemicals known, a very powerful oxidizing agent...oxygen REALLY REALLY doesn't like threesomes with Oxygen. (Ozone is O3, versus what we need which is O2.), and will react with just about anything to pass off that extra oxygen molecule, and do so with the release of a lot of energy. > > And the 'The Sky is Falling' attitude towards Ozone content of SMOG. > [I was an LA resident for many years.] That isn't 'Sky is falling'. Ozone is *proven* to cause asthma attacks, worsen chronic lung diseases, and harm even healthy people. Moreover it reacts readily with numerous other pollutants to form nasty oxides and help form both sulfuric and nitric acid in the atmosphere. Nasty crap...it's one of the reasons that that brown stinking cloud over LA in the bad old days was both brown and stinking. -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Low End Mac's iMac List, a group for those using G3, G4, G5, and Intel Core iMacs as well as Apple eMacs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/imaclist?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
