The lungs of the Earth will breathe easier tonight 🌳 🌳 🌳

[mia]

Link to tweet

[Deuxcents]

1. 👏

[Sympthsical]

2. Most of our oxygen comes from the ocean

Team Plankton!

(but also glad the Amazon is safer now)

Not to go full NdT on people, but the idea the Amazon provides a significant chunk of our oxygen is a myth that gets repeated all the time. It is, however, super important for lots of other reasons.

[argyl]

6. Most of our oxygen does indeed come from the ocean.

But the O2 we get from terrestrial plants does provide enough that we'd be in trouble without it.

[Sympthsical]

10. For certain

But the "lungs of the earth" thing was based on limited understanding at the time. It persists in a lot of media. Like a "You only use 10% of your brain" kind of thing. I pedantically twitch every time I see it.

[Martin68]

7. Sorry, Sympthsical, but that's a simplistic analysis. If the Amazon is deforested, the result

will be catastrophic. Please do a little research. Yes, plankton account for the majority of oxygen produced, but deforestation in the Amazon will not only reduce oxygen production and carbon dioxide reduction, but a significant increase in heat absorption and desertification. Land masses need trees to regulate temperature and moisture in the atmosphere. Meanwhile, the Amazon rainforest is a major source of new information about potential medicines and other benefits that such a diverse source of plants provide.

[Sympthsical]

11. That's the "super important for other things" part

Deforestation of the Amazon would be an ecological and environmental disaster for the reasons you stated.

The "lungs of the earth" name came from a lack of scientific understanding and attribution that the Amazon gives us upwards of 20% of our oxygen or absorbs 25% of our carbon dioxide.

These things are nowhere close to being true. But the myth persists, and you see it perpetuated all the time in media.

It's just this small thing that bothers me for some reason. "Guys, science has evolved since the 1980s! Promise!"

[Martin68]

14. I see straw man arguments are your stock in trade, Symphsical. Not only did I not use the term

"lungs of the earth", I also gave scientific reasons other than the production of oxygen and the processing of carbon dioxide as reasons the deforestation of the Amazon will be an ecological and environmental disaster. Your understanding of ecology and the environment seems limited, to say the least. Try to broaden your understanding of environmental issues.

[Sympthsical]

15. I'm talking about the term used in the OP

Look at the tweet using the phrase. Which is why I made the initial response to it that I did.

My science is sound. It's the fact I have been studying oxygen generation in my current microbiology class, including recent studies on it, that prompted me to make the remark.

If you want to have an argument with someone, hard pass. It's Monday. Too early. I'm sure there's one floating around here somewhere.

[Martin68]

16. You are clearly obsessed with the "lungs of the earth" meme. But if you're going to respond to a

comment, I'd suggest you address the comment directly, not something else you reflexively disagree with in the original post. Also, if you aren't looking for an argument on a Monday morning, avoid something sarcastically wise-ass like ""Guys, science has evolved since the 1980s! Promise!" No one likes a know-it-all, particularly on Monday mornings.

[Bayard]

3. K&R

[SheltieLover]

4. Ty, Brazil!

[walkingman]

5. Great news!! I hoping our nation sends a similar message in the future.

[LT Barclay]

8. Hopefully this will also include restoration of the rights of indigenous peoples.

They were being systematically eliminated.

[Samrob]

9. Didn't Lula try that before and was demeaned for doing so? You know, the 'socialist meme."

[LT Barclay]

17. Don't know enough of the history personally.

A year ago I read Jacques Cousteau's Amazon Expedition book, and watched the documentary. Then Jean-Michel Cousteau's Return to the Amazon book and documentary. JMC's daughter Celine has become an advocate and was working on another documentary. I know there are other advocates, but I haven't kept up with current issues.
But the whole "socialist" thing really makes me sick. It doesn't help that any on-line definition of "socialism" doesn't sound any different from communism to me. So it is very difficult to explain to someone who doesn't want to see the difference how our country should function.
There is another thread going right know talking about labels and fighting dirty. So maybe the Fascism word is what we need to fight the right. I've also thought that we need to be saying as a nation we are only as strong as our weakest link.

[Johnny2X2X]

12. Is a coup in the works though?

Bolsonaro hasn't conceded and he's been saying he's not going to leave for months. This is still a very dangerous situation.

[NickB79]

13. He can't stop deforestation, not without using the military for enforcement

When he was President last time, the Amazon was still losing between 5,000-10,000 sq km of forest each year. As it is, we're to the point where we need to start REFORESTING thousands of km of forest each year to prevent a runaway drying effect that will kill the remainder of it even without any more human intervention. Since the Amazon generates a significant amount of it's own rainfall through transpiration, it is believed that removing 25% of it is enough to reduce the amount of rainfall below the point where the trees can survive. And we're right at the 25% mark now

Nothing short of deploying tens of thousands of soldiers to patrol the edges of the rainforest will significantly halt it's destruction. And then he'd need to start paying farmers to give up already-cleared land on a massive scale. Given the surging price of grain thanks to climate change and the war in Ukraine, the demand for more farmland is higher than ever though. A lot of farmers will just keep clearing land, laws be damned, without harsh punishment and enforcement.

What we'll likely see is a slowdown in the rate of clearing as Lula is forced to balance environmental concerns with economic ones, which will still translate into thousands of sq km lost per year. And people will cheer, because it will look like progress. And the Amazon will still be dead by the end of this century.