How much of our life giving oxygen do you figure is being destroyed along with the Amazon trees that make it ?

Answer 1

None at all. You have bought into an urban myth. Trees in the Amazon don't produce any oxygen. Not even one little bit.

AN OFT-HEARD WARNING with regard to our planet's future is that by cutting back tropical forests we put our supply of oxygen gas at risk. Many good reasons exist for placing deforestation near the top of our list of environmental sins, but fortunately the fate of the Earth's O2 supply does not hang in the balance. Simply put, our atmosphere is endowed with such an enormous reserve of this gas that even if we were to burn all our fossil fuel reserves, all our trees, and all the organic matter stored in soils, we would use up only a few percent of the available O2. No matter how foolishly we treat our environmental heritage, we simply don't have the capacity to put more than a small dent in our O2 supply. Furthermore, the Earth's forests do not play a dominant role in maintaining O2 reserves, because they consume just as much of this gas as they produce. In the tropics, ants, termites, bacteria, and fungi eat nearly the entire photosynthetic O2 product. Only a tiny fraction of the organic matter they produce accumulates in swamps and soils or is carried down the rivers for burial on the sea floor.

Answer 2

The Amazon rain forest is a "climax community" which means, among other things, that all of the oxygen it generates is used by organisms in the forest. The same goes for carbon dioxide: all the carbon dioxide removed by the trees is coming from other organisms in the forest.

The problem with cutting these forests, then, is not the loss of oxygen production or carbon dioxide absorption capacity. It is exactly what the first part of you question refers to. As the organisms (trees, etc.) are decomposed or burned, large amounts of oxygen are consumed and a great deal of carbon dioxide is released. You have essentially broken the cycle by destroying the forest.

There are other problems with cutting forests, like the fact that forests filter a lot of pollutants from air and water. Losing the forests means losing that filter.

Answer 3

Marine vegetation and algae such as seaweed and kelp and so on replenish about 75% of the worlds oxygen supply. So I would say very little of the worlds oxygen would be destroyed along with the Amazon rainforest.

Answer 4

None!

The trees take in CO2 and put out oxygen. Destroying the trees doesn't destroy the oxygen, it is still there tied up in the CO2 with fewer trees to release it for human consumption.

Answer 5

Well, a large tree whose trunk is 39 inches in diameter at breast height releases 0.67 pounds (0.31 kilograms) of oxygen per day. A smaller tree of 9-12 inches diameter at breast height releases only 0.13 lbs (0.06 kg) per day. For comparison, according to NASA, a typical adult would use 1.85 lbs (0.84 kg) of oxygen gas per day in the process of respiration. According to the web site http://www.treepeople.org/, in one year an acre of trees can provide enough oxygen for 18 people.

It is estimated that at least 40 million acres of rainforests are cleared each year. This area is approximately equal to the the size of Washington state.

If I figure right, that's equal to the death of 2,222,222.2 people a year due to lack of oxygen.

It's estimated that there are 6.5 billion people on earth as of Feb. 26, 2006.

Answer 6

Can't give you those numbers, but, the Amazon produces about 80% of the world's oxygen.

Answer 7

The rainforest is at equilibrium, it uses roughly as much as it produces. The earth itself is in equilibrium the balance of gases stays roughly the same. There are processes that lessen the effects of individual actions much like a buffer resists pH changes. Granted extreme changes can throw equilibrium off, we haven't reached that point. Isn't it a little arrogant to think that humans are important enough that the fate of the world rests in our hands?

Answer 8

This Mother Earth hasn't changed her personality since day one. It will evolve forever, or as long as it lasts which is longer than our minds can imagine. It's alive and it will do what it does everyday. Some things will change for the better and change for the worse, but it will live on in her own way. We worry and study about it, but it sustains us well. Weather tragedies will still happen like they always have. It may be different from year to year, but that's who she is. She's an evolving living thing.

Answer 9

Matter cannot be created nor destroyed, therefore, no oxygen is destroyed. It just combines with other elements to form other substances such as water or carbon dioxide.

Answer 10

Not too much. It really sucks that trees are being cut down without being replanted but there are SO many plants in the world I wouldn't worry about it.