Now, I dont know, but I just read this article in the Atlantic that debunks the storythat 20% of the worlds oxygen is produced in the Amazon rainforests and as they burn, so will our planets oxygen.
I dont know. I dont like taking just one writers word. Are there any other sources to look into this?
Science stories in general, and environmental stories in particular, are not things the media handles well. They need to attract attention, rather than educate.
The 20% claim is an exaggeration. That doesn’t make the fires a non-event, but if they don’t make it sound like a crisis, people won’t react.
The figure I heard (eventually) is 5%, and that’s for the whole Amazon. And the whole Amazon isn’t burning. Yes, deforestation is bad.
Regards,
Shodan
Well to be fair, I think the fire is the only way to drive away the poison tree frogs that guard El Dorado and finally reclaim its lost golden riches.
Related questions to throw out -
What fraction of the world CO2 sequestration is by the Amazon?
How much CO2 is being release by the current fires and how quickly will forest regrowth recapture how much of it?
As to your first question, I don’t know. From the piece I heard on NPR, the issue is that they are burning trees to clear for farm land.
I don’t know how much a mature forest sequesters. New trees replacing old ones wouldn’t sequester all that much - more a steady state. AIUI the issue is that the trees are being burned, the land is used for farming, and since the land isn’t that great for farming, the farm land is abandoned after a few years and the trees are then replaced by shrubs and grass, which probably doesn’t absorb much CO[sup]2[/sup] overall.
The scientist I heard on NPR talked more about the Amazon being a cooling system. The evaporation or condensation of water, which is enhanced by the cover provided by trees (and not by farm land) absorbs heat from the environment.
Obviously fires would release heat as well as CO[sup]2[/sup].
Regards,
Shodan
I’d actually read the cooling aspect as being a large component of weather- if a large proportion of the Amazon was to burn, you’d get weird changes in weather as a result.
Plus, the bigger risk is that apparently that sort of rainforest has some kind of critical mass to function, and if too much is destroyed, it’ll change into more of a savannah-type biome.
Urbanredneck, serious question: did you read the entire article or quit when you got to the part that said burning the Amazon doesn’t affect the world’s supply of oxygen? Just curious as to what you thought about what the article said the real danger to the earth’s oxygen supply is.
I still want to know who is lying to the OP. I’ll add this message board to the places that aren’t lying:
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=880887
They broadcasted it on the news. I think NBC or something.
Well, maybe you could find a video or something, but my impression is that the Amazon fires may be getting more coverage than they need to (apparently, this isn’t even the biggest year for fires), but the coverage I’ve read has accurately portrayed the problems with the fire.
TV news is even worse for science coverage than print news is, of course.
The French President, Macron, made the claim. He’s not a journalist, nor a scientist, of course.
Regards,
Shodan
Yeah, maybe the OP saw reporting of a politician getting it wrong and thought it was the media itself lying?
ETA: Vox should have corrected Macron’s factual error, of course.
I saw this on the CNN site.They mention the 20% figure towards the end. I do notice they dont give any real “source” for that figure only say “environmentalists”.
I think it’s getting more coverage because the new president of Brazil has rolled back a lot of the environmental legislature, and basically the fires this year are not just happening…they are caused by humans deliberately setting them in efforts to basically grab the land for use by cattle grazing and away from the indigenous, and using the new legislative conditions (or lack there of) to do so. Couple that with the already high levels of Amazon deforestation and you have a real issue that is having a serious impact.
As to the OP, I don’t know what the exact figure is, but the main problem I know of isn’t with oxygen but with moisture in the air. Rain forests create a lot of the ‘rain’ part of that equation, and the Amazon actually creates a lot of weather just by its existence and operation, including a lot of the moisture we get in the north. This is all being disrupted by the extensive cutting and burning for clearing out the land for other use (cattle basically). And this leaves aside the indigenous peoples that live there…just the environmental impact is huge. Whether it is in fact 20% of the oxygen is beside the point that it’s a major environmental issue that is being allowed to expand (it was already happening) due to the current government in Brazil (who seems to be using our own president as a model for how things should be run).
Dont get me wrong, I hate the idea of virgin forests going away.
However on the other side I know we here in the US did this long ago so how do we have the right to tell Brazilians not to do the same? It’s kind of racist and arrogant.
My original post was just about the 20% number.
The Amazon rain forest is completely different wrt it’s environmental impact and also just how it works to the forests we had in North America. It has a MUCH larger impact than our forest did, and also because of how it works the environmental impact locally is much higher due to the fact that the soil is compared to how our soil is/was. It’s apples to orangutans.
No, it’s not racist OR arrogant to call the Brazilians out on this or to ask them what the fuck they are doing. Just the opposite, in fact, because it DOES have such a large external impact. And this leaves aside the fact that this is basically a land grab by some elements in Brazil to burn out the indigenous peoples in the region and get them off the land. It’s something we should ALSO care about.
As for the 20% figure, I take all such things with a grain of salt…hell, a mountain of salt. The press is, generally, going to just repeat memes and bullshit stats. They aren’t lying deliberately…it has a large non-zero impact, and 20% sounds good. Whether it is, in fact, 5% or 20% is really not the point. The press also hasn’t mentioned the other impacts that are more critical, as they want to just make the point that it will have an impact and ‘oxygen’ is something people can grasp (while if they mention rain and moisture folks eyes will glaze over or they will be confused, and gods forbid they talk about the carbon impact).
I find Atlantic to be an extremely credible news outlet, so if they say the Amazon is not the earth’s lung and it makes no important oxygen contribution, then I will trust them and stop repeating that trope starting now.
But, the truth in that article is just as disturbing. If I’m reading correctly, then most of our atmospheric oxygen actually comes from buried carbon. So we’re depleting our global oxygen reserves as we slowly mine and burn fossil fuels.
Still, I personally think we should refrain from burning the Amazon, because even if it isn’t exactly the earth’s lung, it influences the weather, it’s a huge source of biodiversity, it supports ecosystems that we don’t understand, and nobody really knows what could happen if we lose it. Plus I’ve never seen it.
We’re Americans, that’s what we do. Might as well do it for good reasons. (sarcasm)
More to the point, who are the Brazilians? The Europeans who conquered it and want to burn it down, or the native (south) Americans who live in that forest and depend on it? I would humbly suggest maybe the people who have lived there 10,000 years ought to have a bigger say than the European colonist government.
By this argument, if the natives up and decided to burn the place down we should support it.
I’m not sure I like this argument.