The article makes the argument "there is a lot of pollen" and separately "there exist monoculture forests / tree farms" in Japan.

But what it doesn't do is:

1. Argue that the pollen is worse because of monoculture relative to polyculture forests (we could mix sugi and hinoki and...I assume net pollen would be the same?)

2. Argue that lots of pollen leads to more allergies. I mean, you might think that higher levels of exposure in childhood would lead to *fewer* people with allergies. So maybe a lack of forests in the past --> lots of people with allergies today? Why are the Japanese so allergic?

This article is bad and the author should feel bad.