Live Christmas Trees Urged in Smog Battle

Another sign of the times in Mexico City: environmentalists are asking people to use live Christmas trees that can be replanted to help alleviate the ever-worsening smog.

As in many other parts of the world, Mexicans traditionally have used a freshly chopped evergreen as the focal point for Christmas celebrations.

But the tradition only adds to Mexico’s mammoth environmental problems because it destroys forests and reduces the number of trees available to help cleanse the air, environmentalists argued.