The Star’s editorial perpetuates the false impression that the Amazon rain forest generates 20 per cent of the world’s oxygen. In reality, the rainforest both generates and uses oxygen in roughly equal amounts.
According to the National Geographic, the 20 per cent figure, which has earned the forest the title “lungs of the Earth,” is a gross overestimate. “As several scientists have pointed out in recent days, the Amazon’s net contribution to the oxygen we breathe likely hovers around zero,” it states.
PBS confirms this: “Forest plants produce lots of oxygen, and forest microbes consume a lot of oxygen. As a result, net production of oxygen by forests — and indeed, all land plants — is very close to zero.”