Lungs of the earth?????

Lungs of the earth?????

by Johnathan Ruben
(Baltimore)

When a tree falls the chemical reaction is:

Wood + oxygen = CO2

A mature tropical rain forest doesn't have ANY influence on the O2-CO2 balance. Your site is overall good and instructive. However, the one piece of nonsense significantly damages the whole.

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Lungs of the earth?????

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Jan 26, 2011
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Reply to Johnathan Ruben
by: Irin

Your compliment to the author of the page is "overall good," but the rest of your comment is "nonsense" and significantly damages your weak attempt at offering constructive criticism as a whole.

It's true that growing trees absorb more carbon than old trees in a given year. However, large and old trees store more carbon in their wood than small and young trees.

Overall, mature forests are signficant global carbon sinks.

Living trees store carbon for hundreds of years, and even fallen decaying trees release their carbon over several decades (up to about 60 years). Even after decay, some of the carbon from the wood is stored as humus.

When wood is removed from the forest and processed for fuel or materials, the stored carbon is released to the atmosphere rapidly.

Altogether, it may still be better to utilize some woody biomass to replace petroleum-based fuels and materials.

Nonetheless, mature forests, particularly, function in a number of ways that benefit us; one being as the "lungs of the Earth."

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