Op-Ed Contributors, Opinion

The Amazon fires won’t suffocate the Earth

The Amazon fires won’t suffocate the Earth

By Pitamber Kaushik —

The fires raging in the Amazon Rainforest won’t severely reduce the Earth’s oxygen supply. This is precisely because the Amazon Rainforests are not the lungs of the Earth.

They indeed produce about a fifth of the Earth’s oxygen but they contribute hardly a fifteenth to the net oxygen released. This is because while lush, dense, diverse and teeming tropical rainforests generate vast amounts of oxygen, they consume comparable quantities as well. In the case of the Amazon, it constitutes 16% of all terrestrial photosynthesis. Plants produce oxygen as a byproduct of their nutrition process of photosynthesis in which they generate active energetic molecules which can be harnessed and expended later to perform various functions, including active transport and respiration.

The Amazon is a teeming microcosm in itself. Microbes, insects, fungi and plants that densely abound in a rainforest all consume copious quantities of oxygen. Debris and detritus as twigs and leaves from the canopy, dying vegetation and cadavers of organisms constantly rot and decay, and this decomposition exerts a massive biological oxygen demand, supplied from the oxygen produced by the forest vegetation. In the photosynthesis reaction, we get one net molecule of oxygen release per molecule of carbon dioxide fixed by the plant. So a simple reasoning can debunk the Selvas’ oxygen production-potency, given that carbon dioxide comprises a meagre 0.4% of the Earth’s atmosphere. Put simply, there just isn’t enough carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (currently and yet) for the rainforest to significantly contribute to the Earth’s atmospheric oxygen.

About half of the world’s oxygen supply comes from the oceans, from tiny plant organisms called phytoplankton, which have over the course of a couple billion years pumped enormous volumes of oxygen into the Earth’s atmosphere. For vast aeons during this period of natural history, the Earth’s atmosphere was alternately carbon-dioxide rich and oxygen-rich. The oxygen we breathe is mostly the legacy of countless generations of phytoplankton, unsung heroes of the ocean. Terrestrial plants only help maintain it. Taking all photosynthesis into account, the net positive oxygen contribution by the Amazon rainforest shrinks to a mere 6% of the total.

“The Amazon rain forest – the lungs that produce 20% of our planet’s oxygen – is on fire”, a tweet by the French President Emmanuel Macron read. “The lungs of the Earth are in flames,” said actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Several celebrities shared purported photos of the Amazon Fire captioning them along similar lines. A photo shared by soccer superstar Ronaldo was snapped in 2013 in southern Brazil. The photo that DiCaprio and Macron shared is from before 2000. The photo shared by popstar Madonna and actor Jaden Smith is from the late 1980s. Some celebrities reportedly shared photos from Montana, India, and Sweden.

Even the BBC has contributed to the conception of this wrongful, nay incompletely-pictured notion. The misguided reasoning given is that forests act as carbon dioxide sinks and oxygen sources, while no bilateral transfers are mentioned.

The Amazon is home to countless species, many of them endemic i.e. found only there. It is also home to various unique tribes, an anthropic heritage. Amazon is a tightly-meshed biodiversity hotspot and a cradle of lifeforms and human groups. If ‘mere’ survivalism is the driving impulse behind environmental salvaging endeavours, and not aesthetics and heritage-inspired value, we won’t be compelled to act until the very tipping point is approached. We would not feel impelled to make a move unless our very sustenance as a lifeform, or rather as an individual, is imperilled. We would not be driven by the force of preservation, but rather the bare survivalistic instinct, the fright and flight or fight response that shall kick in at the very brink of inevitability  – a kneejerk reflex. Meanwhile, aesthetic-inspired conservation efforts, directed at fastidious rescue and insistence upon continuation of every single wondrous craft of nature, shall inculcate a consistent, continual and lasting habit of sustainability.

As for utilitarians and pragmatists, there’s still more than a faint glimmer of hope. Consider the following feedback cycle that starts with lesser vegetation and ends with it, thus completing itself: ‘Lesser vegetation leads to less rain. The lesser the rain, the more arid the soil, the more prone it is to wind erosion. Soil-withered lands lose fertility and are less conducive to vegetation growth. Lower vegetation cover in turn poorly binds the soil, leads to more erosion and leads to less rain, the latter of which in turn directly leads to lower vegetation growth, diversification and proliferation.’ It’s a fatal and multifaceted self-compounding cycle that can sustain and aggravate itself. The depletion of the Amazon forest cover could potentially lead us down this funnel. The Amazon does indeed have a significant net carbon fixation, binds the soil preventing erosion and prevents the initiation of the aforementioned fatal self-fuelling cycle that terminates in desertification. It also regulates the water cycle, rain patterns and moderates the climate. It is more like the Amazon deserves the sobriquet of being the “Air-conditioner of the Planet.”

Pitamber KaushikPitamber Kaushik, a journalist and writer, lives in Patna, India. His columns have been published in more than 40 newspapers in more than 15 countries.

One Comment

  1. The earth’s atmosphere is comprised of 0.04% of Carbon Dioxide. NOT .4%

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