The Little Tree That Could! (Meaningless Statistics)

 
I am a great fan of the meaningless statistic. The New York Times seem to be a great fan of them, too. It certainly prints a lot of them.

The truly great meaningless statistic gives you the very precise, scientific-sounding parts of a real statistic, but the journalist leaves out one vital parameter, so that what's left has no meaning at all.

Here is a gem, from today's New York Times:

"The Center for Urban Forest Research estimates that each tree removes 1.5 pounds of pollutants from the air."

Wow! One point five pounds! They didn't even round it up, or down, to the nearest pound! That is so precise! Er, one point five pounds of pollutants every second? Every day? Every year? Over the course of the tree's life? Which might be what, two hundred years? Five hundred years?

And while we're at it, how big is this urban tree, the one that removes one point five pounds of pollutants from the air every second? Or every five hundred years... Is it a six-inch high bonsai tree in a pot on a window sill? Is it a six- foot sapling on a new housing estate? Is it a hundred foot high oak, in the centre of Central Park?

And what pollutants is this mighty oak, or pot plant,  removing with such astonishing speed, or sloth? A pollutant is just a chemical you don't approve of, in a place you don't want it. (Water in your glass is fine. Water in your petrol tank is a pollutant.) Carbon dioxide, for example, is now considered by many to be a greenhouse gas that will destroy the world. So are they counting carbon dioxide as a pollutant? Because trees do little else but remove carbon dioxide from the air. A lettuce could remove one point five pounds of CO2 from the air without even trying very hard. So a hundred foot tree that took five hundred years to do so would be pretty unimpressive. Or do they mean pollutants like lead? A bonsai tree that removed a pound and a half of lead from the air every second would be pretty damn impressive. I'd pay to watch that.

"The Center for Urban Forest Research estimates that each tree removes 1.5 pounds of pollutants from the air."

Jesus Christ.