
The Amazon Is Not the Earth’s Lungs - mpweiher
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/amazon-fire-earth-has-plenty-oxygen/596923/
======
vfc1
It might be that burning down every living tree would not make a dent in the
oxygen supply, but having the earth temperature go up 5 degrees would kill
most phytoplankton, and that would end the oxygen supply (eventually).

This type of articles is the last thing we need right now, it all piles up on
the narrative that the consequences of climate change are really not that bad
and there is no real urgency in doing anything about it.

Especially if that implies a change of behaviors like eating less meat. Nobody
wants to give away their cheeseburgers as Elizabeth Warren factitiously says,
this how you make headlines and get elected for office, tell people what they
want to hear, stay away from the truth.

~~~
partialrecall
Adherence to the truth is more important than adherence to a narrative.
Promoting a good cause by allowing falsehoods to spread may seem helpful in
the short term, but in doing so you're building a house on a foundation of
sand. When you promote trivial falsehoods instead of calling them out, you
allow your opposition to be the one who calls out those falsehoods, and thus
undermine your cause.

When somebody on your side says something well-meaning but wrong, _you_ should
be the one to call them out. In doing so, you deny your enemy the opportunity
to do so.

~~~
djsumdog
Yea, you shouldn't deny a reality because you believe in the noble lie.

And to be fair, climate change is turned into a crazy red hearing of a
political issue. There are lakes of sludge outside factory cities in China,
insane amounts of plastic particulates in the oceans, tons and tons of textile
waste. There are so many many forms of pollution much worse than CO2, and when
you focus on just CO2, you get carbon laws like those enacted in Australia
briefly that caused more fuel expenditure in moving ore to China for
processing instead of processing it domestically.

There needs to be a huge change in consumption. We need cell phones that last
10 years, not 2~3. We need to end the constant replacement cycle. Intel's
shareholders should be glad when sales are below projections because the old
chips are lasting longer.

But this is not how our economy or industry works. It's all based about
infinite growth, selling you new things, sending your e-waste to Africa to be
harvested by kids and be smeltered in recycling shops without OSHA
requirements or respirators, sending textile waste to Africa to be sold (but
mostly burned), etc. etc.

Until there is a major collapse globally and people recognize the scale of our
folly of consumerism and over-consumption, people will not recognize the real
changes needed to build a more sustainable world. And reducing overall
consumption will also reduce CO2 emissions ... along with all types of other
emissions. But it will take reduction. We cannot spend and buy our way out of
environmental damage.

~~~
shredprez
> the scale of our folly of consumerism and over-consumption

Consumerism, over-consumption, and the economic growth these behaviors drive
are impossible to eliminate without crippling the global economy. But I think
there actually is a way to have our unlimited cake without toasting the
planet, it just requires us to divorce the concept of value from physical
items (or increase the fidelity, and thus value, of digital items). This is
already taking place, with the data economy being the obvious if controversial
first step. Similarly, I see the explosion of digital marketplaces and
microtransactions within social and mobile gaming platforms as another example
of this concept.

There will inevitably be externalities to a shift toward primarily virtual
consumption, but I don't think it's unreasonable to imagine compelling virtual
products diminishing the draw of many physical item, along with the need for
infrastructure to support their production and dissemination.

~~~
tempguy9999
> Consumerism, over-consumption, and the economic growth these behaviors drive
> are impossible to eliminate without crippling the global economy.

Then let's ask the question. What are the medium (5-20) years and long (100
years) consequences of such crippling in your view? I am not an economist so
any insight from an expert would be good.

~~~
shredprez
Near term, the radical contraction or failure of most businesses that directly
or indirectly depend on consumerism and over-consumption as the prevailing
social behavior. In America, that's a lot of businesses. In China, that's a
lot of businesses. And much of the world effectively serves consumerism in
these large nations.

Long term... depends? Maybe people figure out a different mechanic to drive
growth and re-orient. Maybe people abandon growth as a goal and shift toward a
steady-state model (this would be interesting, but would have big global power
implications unless every nation signs on). Maybe people suffer for a bit
before rediscovering how powerful consumerism is as an economic engine and get
back into it for a while until the costs start catching up to them again.

As the foremost expert on "my view", you can depend on these predictions to
capture with total accuracy what I believe to be the crippling consequences
mentioned earlier.

------
childintime
Related: the fires in the Congo, Africa, this week resulted in bad air-quality
in the northeast of Brazil. That made the national news.

Sadly it's not only the Amazon that is cutting down on trees. Besides the
fires in Africa, Canada was also in the news some time ago. Apparently that
prompted the Canadian government to put up a page to deal with the issue:
[https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/forests-
forest...](https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/forests-
forestry/wildland-fires-insects-disturban/deforestation-canada-key-myths-and-
facts/13419)

------
alexcroox
One Strange Rock, a nature documentary hosted by Will Smith (stay with me)
actually goes into this in some detail and I would definitely recommend a
watch.
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7651892/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7651892/)

~~~
lelima
I saw it, a bit skeptic about Will Smith but the production is high Quality, I
suppose with Will the show is pointing younger generations.

~~~
mc32
Haven’t watched it myself but often times these kinds of documentaries use
voice actors to read the script and lend a good voice to their content. James
Earl Jones, Leonard Nimoy, etc.

~~~
derrasterpunkt
He is not just voice acting, he is presenting. And a lot of astronauts (Chris
Hadfield is the only one I can remember right now). I haven’t finished
watching though.

------
chisleu
This is a great point. An important aspect of this is that most of the
Amazon's deforestation is land owners developing their land and adding to the
agricultural sectors of South America.

If we want to stop them, we need to stop the excessive consumption of these
goods. This doesn't just mean stopping over eating, it means changing what you
eat and paying more for goods sourced locally.

Unfortunately, that means from countries with higher labor costs and higher
taxes because of higher subsidies.

It's a hard sell for most consumers. How do we accomplish that?

~~~
ajmurmann
From what I've read most of the agricultural production in Brazil goes
directly or indirectly towards beef and biofuel. So cutting down on beef
consumption seems like a great step. I personally have cut down my meat
consumption dramatically, but how can we move that further as not only a
society, but a species? If I stop eating beef, but nobody else does, nothing
is won. If the US cuts down on beef consumption, other countries will be happy
to buy the now cheaper beef.

Collective action problems are a problem...

~~~
input_sh
> ...but how can we move that further as not only a society, but a species?

The answer is simple, the execution is hard and will piss a lot of people off:
start treating red meat as a luxury item, and slowly introduce taxes on top of
its price, like we do for alcohol and tobacco. Nothing drastic of course, just
a few cents extra every half a year or so to make people reconsider their
eating habits again and again.

But if we're talking about the US specifically, that's not even necessary.
Just removing subsidies that are already handed out to the meat industry will
achieve the same result.

~~~
ptah
you don't have to tax beef. merely remove the subsidies given to it's
producers and let the free market cut down the consumption

~~~
vonmoltke
How much are those subsidies? Would it really be enough to raise the price
sufficiently to drive change?

------
abainbridge
Not least because lungs take in oxygen and output carbon dioxide. I guess
while the Amazon is on fire it acts a bit like lungs.

~~~
bestouff
Well from the point of view of your body, your lungs bring oxygen in and take
carbon dioxide out.

~~~
abainbridge
Ha, nice one! So if the Amazon is like lungs in this sense, where is it
bringing the oxygen in from?

~~~
mikepurvis
Released as waste via photosynthesis when it breaks apart CO2 in order to use
the carbon to build plant matter?

~~~
partialrecall
If I recall my bio class right, the oxygen in the CO2 goes into the production
of carbohydrates. The oxygen released as waste comes from split water
molecules (photosynthesis requires both CO2 and H20.)

~~~
Xixi
Photosynthesis: 6CO2 + 6H2O → C6H12O6 + 6O2

In English: 6 carbon dioxide molecules and 6 water molecules become 1 glucose
molecule and 6 dioxygen molecules.

So for each CO2 molecule in, there is one O2 molecule out. Now it's entirely
possible that some of the O in O2 comes from the H2O molecules. At most half
of it if I know how to count up to twelve.

Edited for clarity.

~~~
mikepurvis
And then the glucose is what becomes the building block for cellulose, lignin,
etc, right?

~~~
Xixi
And amino acids [1], and anything organic synthesized by plants, through many
many intermediary steps. But I am neither a biologist nor a chemist, so please
do not take my word for it, I may be wrong.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acid_synthesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amino_acid_synthesis)

------
siliconunit
Thinking that exposing the objective truth to the general public is always the
best course of action is at best naive and can at times lead to tragedy... You
can do this to a greater extent if your nation is small and has a high amount
of highly educated citizens (ie Scandinavian countries) that are able to
understand implications and distinctions and place limits to their personal
volition for the sake of the community. Tell to Joe down the road that the
recycling truck at times dumps everything together for technical reasons and
you will dramatically diminish the care and effort to properly separate waste.

------
autokad
I thought the Amazon was called Earths lungs because of how it sucks moisture
from the ocean across land.

(Please correct me if I am wrong) its my understanding that the area would be
quite dry, but the plants manipulate the atmosphere with particulates to draw
in water from the oceans and create precipitation across the continent. I
thought it was this 'sucking' that gave its name 'earth's lungs'.

I also dont like the focus on Co2. that's not the only way the world cools,
warms. the water being converted to gas, to water, and gas again takes up
energy and cools the planet. beyond c02, if the Amazon were to go away, I
think the earth would get warmer to some extent.

------
js2
“Does the Amazon provide 20% of our oxygen?” discussion from a couple weeks
ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20789771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20789771)

------
rafaelvasco
Doesn't mean we shouldn't care; It's amazing how people always view things
with a negative and destructive not-my-problem mindset; Humanity in general
right now is much more destructive than constructive; We must always strive to
make a positive impact for others and for the entire planet, leaving things
better than they were before us, not the contrary;

------
JadeNB
Duplicate of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20928439](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20928439)
? (I don't know which one should stay.)

------
asplake
News just in: the metaphor is not the thing

~~~
wutbrodo
The article isn't nitpicking the metaphor, it's saying that the factual claim
underlying the metaphor (ie that the Amazon provides 20% or some appreciable
amount of our oxygen) is false.

If you click the link at the top of the page, it takes you to an article that
you can read. I recommend doing so before commenting on a post in general

------
dejaime
This feels like a simple strawman. The problem is called global warming, not
global deoxygenation.

~~~
wutbrodo
Strawman of what? The article isn't titled "there is no problem with
deforestation, go nuts". The first paragraph describes the hypothetical loss
of the Amazon as a "planetary historic tragedy beyond measure", and says that
it'll make the Paris climate goals impossible to reach.

None of this contradicts the premise of the article, which is that a commonly-
held and - expressed belief about the Amazon's role in our oxygen supply is
not supported by the science.

Strawman doesn't mean "talking about a different topic than I'd prefer".

------
amflare
The above link is a paragraph and a click-through link. This is the actual
article:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/amazon-f...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/08/amazon-
fire-earth-has-plenty-oxygen/596923/)

~~~
dang
Changed from [https://blog.longnow.org/02019/09/01/the-amazon-is-not-
the-e...](https://blog.longnow.org/02019/09/01/the-amazon-is-not-the-earths-
lungs/). Thanks.

------
gnusty_gnurc
Some are motivated to hyperbolize about the wildfires in Brazil in order to
craft a narrative that Bolsonaro is ushering in the apocalypse. There’s
wildfires in Bolivia but no one is blaming socialism (Evo Morales).

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/02/bolivia-evo-
mo...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/02/bolivia-evo-morales-
wildfires-chiquitano)

~~~
Carioca
Brazilian Amazon deforestation went up 222% in August, compared to the same
time last year[1]. Bolsonaro has a very anti-conservation agenda. He has:

\- Appointed a climate denialist conspiracy theorist as his foreign minister
[2]

\- Appointed as minister for the environment a man convicted of forging
documents in favour of mining companies [3]

\- Contradicted the National Institute for Space Research, responsible for
satellite tracking of deforestation, when it published preliminary data that
showed the increase (as it had done every year), then fired its director[4]

\- Then went on to blame the fires on conservation NGOs [5]

This is just off the top of my head (I'm Brazilian), links provided are just
the first search results from reputable sources in English. Happy to provide
more info to anyone who needs it.

That said, I have no love for Evo nor do I know the specifics of the situation
across the border, but Bolsonaro is terrible for the environment and the world
should be concerned, not in the least because 58.4% of the Amazon is inside
Brazil's border. In contrast, 7.7% of it falls within Bolivia

1: [https://www.dw.com/pt-br/desmatamento-na-amaz%C3%B4nia-em-
ag...](https://www.dw.com/pt-br/desmatamento-na-amaz%C3%B4nia-em-agosto-
cresce-222-em-rela%C3%A7%C3%A3o-a-2018/a-50350187)

2: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/15/brazil-
foreign...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/15/brazil-foreign-
minister-ernesto-araujo-climate-change-marxist-plot)

3: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-
minister/...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-
minister/brazils-incoming-environment-minister-found-guilty-of-improper-
conduct-idUSKCN1OJ2VE)

4: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment-
job/br...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment-job/brazil-
space-research-chief-to-leave-job-after-bolsonaro-deforestation-spat-
idUSKCN1US20H)

5: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/21/jair-
bolsonaro...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/21/jair-bolsonaro-
accuses-ngos-setting-fire-amazon-rainforest)

[edited to add size of Bolivian Amazon]

------
JonCox
Not anymore it isn't.

------
imvetri
Please refrain promoting deforestation

~~~
keawade
The article does not promote deforestation.

> Losing the Amazon, beyond representing a planetary historic tragedy beyond
> measure, would also make meeting the ambitious climate goals of the Paris
> Agreement all but impossible.

It discusses a misconception that has been propogated lately.

> The Amazon is a vast, ineffable, vital, living wonder. It does not, however,
> supply the planet with 20 percent of its oxygen.

> As the biochemist Nick Lane wrote in his 2003 book Oxygen, “Even the most
> foolhardy destruction of world forests could hardly dint our oxygen supply,
> though in other respects such short-sighted idiocy is an unspeakable
> tragedy.”

~~~
CodeWriter23
Characterizing 6% of the oxygen supply as “more or less zero” (as the author
does) seems to signal approval of deforestation to me.

~~~
wutbrodo
Let's leave aside how ludicrous it is to ignore the author's half-paragraph of
passionate description of deforestation as tragedy and read the tea leaves to
determine he's a deforestation fan, and ignore how absurd it is to criticize a
factual claim on the basis that it hurts or helps a narrative: you're not even
reading the article's claims correctly.

> The Amazon produces about 6 percent of the oxygen currently being made by
> photosynthetic organisms alive on the planet today. But surprisingly, this
> is not where most of our oxygen comes from. In fact, from a broader Earth-
> system perspective, in which the biosphere not only creates but also
> consumes free oxygen, the Amazon’s contribution to our planet’s unusual
> abundance of the stuff is more or less zero.

The Amazon produces 6% of oxygen produces by photosynthetic organisms. The
proportion of total oxygen produced by these organisms (let's call it P) is
relatively small enough that the Amazon's contribution, 0.06*P, ends up being
negligible.

~~~
CodeWriter23
The article is a classic mixed message propaganda. Too much “is it really THAT
bad though?” mixed in with the mainstream opinion that it’s really bad. This
is how consent is engineered. Not surprised at all that people fall for it
though.

~~~
wutbrodo
There are multiple paragraphs of the strongest possible language describing
how horrible deforestation would be. I've looked through the entire article
and can't find a single thing that would be considered "is it that bad",
beyond the basic factual claim the article is premised on. Is there any way
that your claim is falsifiable at all? Ie, what would an article debunking the
"20% of oxygen" myth look like without being "mixed message propaganda
engineering consent". The author clearly went to some pretty great lengths to
head off the frothing paranoia that he knew people would bring to the issue,
and it's not clear to me what else he could have done.

