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But its not a falsehood to call the Amazon "lungs of the Earth" - its an illustration of the fact that the Amazon, until perhaps recently has been the "largest
by strainer 7y ago
But its not a falsehood to call the Amazon "lungs of the Earth" - its an illustration of the fact that the Amazon, until perhaps recently has been the "largest residual terrestrial carbon sink on the planet"[1]
The article opens with this headline which is false: "Humans could burn every living thing on the planet and still not dent its oxygen supply."
If every living thing was burnt, the planet would cease to resupply oxygen and most of the free oxygen reserves in the atmosphere and oceans would be consumed through geological processes. It would take millennia to complete but its not an outcome which is valid to describe in an educational or truth straightening context as "not a dent".
[1]https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14283 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14283 "Long-term decline of the Amazon carbon sink"
- ehvatum 7y agoIf every living thing was burnt, the planet would cease to resupply oxygen and most of the free oxygen reserves in the atmosphere and oceans would be consumed through geological processes Over what timescale? If you burned every speck of organic matter on the planet, and then you came back in 10,000 years, how much O2 would be in the atmosphere? The article under discussion seems to suggest about 20%.
- strainer 7y agoI dont know if it would take ten thousand years or ten billion years for all the free oxygen in atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere to be depleted. But all of it is here and maintained by the sum total of interconnected living things and it would all go without it.