My teacher says that the rinforest is being cut down and were running out of oxygen, it is BS but i need proof

Question

i know she is wrong and stuff, she says that 20% of the worlds oxygen comes form there and that they are cutting it down and what not, i know it doesn't matter and that she is buying into propaganda, but how do i prove it to her(like sources and stuff)

Answer 1

It's true, about 20% of the oxygen supply is from rainforests. That means 80% isn't. 70% of the world's oxygen comes from the ocean, with 50% from phytoplankton.

Almost all clear cutting, including that in the rainforest, is done for agriculture purposes. There's 6.5 billion people on the planet and they need food. Often the very same people trying to block deforestation are the ones trying to block genetically modified food which could greatly help feed the world and prevent deforestation.

Some claim that 1.5 acres of rainforest is destroyed every second. There was an estimated 3.7 billion acres of rainforest before the bulk of the deforestation began. Starting at that point at the rate of 1.5 acres per second, it would last only 117 years. That's scary stuff. There is a serious concern. Now, the rate has been seriously exaggerated, but it's still an important issue.

They claim 137 plant, animal, or insect species go extinct each day from rainforest deforestation. Name one.

Not rainforest, but forest land...The USDA Forest Service estimated there was 1 billion acres of forest land in 1760 in the U.S. The number is based on assumptions of the amount of deforestation that would be done by the day's population, not an actual account. It wasn't until around 1850 that real statistics were developed. Forest land decreased to a low of 735 million acres in 1920. The greatest decrease was from 1850 to 1900 which saw one of the greatest periods of population rise. The number of farms rose steadily. Trees weren't cut for paper, or decking. The U.S. saw a rise in forest land through about 1940 coinciding with a slow down in population growth and demand from the land resulting from the depression. Beginning around 1950 thanks to technology the number of farms versus size traded places yielding fewer farms of larger size, a trend that continues today. Total forest land remains level from around 1940 to today at 745 million acres, even as the population continues to rise. As technology increases, food, paper, and lumber production per acre improves. The need to clear land is falling.

November 14, 2006 the National Academy of Sciences report, "Returning Forests Analyzed with the Forest Identity" shows that in many parts of the world, there are more trees today than 100 years ago.The net growth of forests has been particularly strong in developed countries. It is the underdeveloped countries where forest land, including rainforests, is decreasing.

Technology can save the rainforest by reducing the need and thus the desire to cut it down. Technology can maximize output per acre for food crops, reducing the required land. Yet there are people in the developed world telling the undeveloped that they cannot.

In almost all cases recycling is worse for the environment than just throwing the stuff away, Recycling is a manufacturing process, machines, buildings, energy, and workers are required to recycle. Processing our trash, sorting, cleaning, shipping, and turning those items into something usable all costs money, and in most instances costs more than making new items. The cost to the consumer for trash pickup is approximately 3 times higher to recycle than to just throw it away. Those processes all consume energy, so we still have pollution created in production of the energy. In some instances more pollution is created in processing these materials than manufacturing new. Chemicals used in cleaning and by-products of the processes cause pollution. Instead of one truck picking up your trash there's two, burning more fuel. Almost ALL paper and tree products is from trees grown on tree farms. We grow trees to make paper just like growing lettuce to make salads. Lettuce is not endangered, and neither are trees. It certainly won't help save rainforests.

Organic items in a landfill produce methane through active decomposition. In large landfills that gas is collected and is used to generate electricity. Burning methane is fairly clean compared to other energy gasses. The methane fuel cell is almost as clean as hydrogen, and much much less expensive. And we're not running out of landfill space. We have plenty of room to safely dispose of thousands of year of trash. Hopefully by then we won't generate as much and recycling will be for more effective.

Answer 2

You have to bite your lip the teacher will slap your grades around if you question her.

Answer 3

its not B.S sorry to burst ur bubble. but its kinda true.:( but nyways i duno try some logging company websites. they prolly disagree to. google it.

Answer 4

Well, we are certainly not "running out of oxygen" the oxygen content of the atmosphere has been essentially unchanged for as long as I have been around.  When parts of the rain forest are cut down, something else is grown there, so the production of oxygen by plants goes on.

Answer 5

ok we are not running out of oxygen just ask her the following question... into what compound is the element oxygen going? or to where?as there is no solid form of oxygen it cannot be going anywhere

and water levels have not increased

only loss of O2 is due to burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests which then are burned producing CO2 (bare with me)

but as CO2 has only gone up by around 0.01% which means that O2 (oxygen) content can only of gone down to 20.93% from 20.95% (which doesn't make the slightest difference)

the problem is not with running out of oxygen... its with the increase in CO2

sorry i couldn't be asked to find sources so i just wrote about it logically get you teacher to read this and she should understand it and see that she is misinformed as to why cutting down rainforest's are bad

you could think of it another way a rain forest that is not growing (in biomass) is in an equilibrium state...  i.e. all imputs = outputs this includes O2 into and out of a plant

(yes plants use O2 as they 'breath' (respire) too and so do the animals that eat them)

the ones we chop down have existed similarly for 1000s of years so the only O2 we remove by removing them is that used when burning them as we're also killing the animals that use the CO2 the forest produces

Answer 6

look up the fact that algae in the ocean provides most of the worlds oxygen.

Answer 7

Dude, which grade are you in and are you a science student? If not, maybe you should take up biology course the next term.

Where do you think the O2 comes from and who absorbs all the CO2 when you exhale?

In case you don't know, many governments are regrowing forest to protect the environment. This act is certified as an act of protecting the environment under the Kyoto Protocol, which can claim for carbon credits.

Answer 8

ok u are right she is wrong.

u must say to her that its not 20% of the oxygen that comes from the rainforests.

It is 40% so its even more important to protect them.

i dont understand where u got ur "propaganda" from that its not true????

what are u going to use your money on when u cant breath anymore ?