Hello alexander!

23 Apr 17 22:45, alexander koryagin wrote to Gerrit Kuehn:


 ak> In other words IYO the phase "forests are the lungs of the Earth" is 
 ak> false? Because the amount of CO2 absorbed by the plants is equal to 
 ak> oxygen they produce.

No. For a working ecosystem we need a stable situation, where O2 and CO2 levels
are kept at a more or less constant level. Forests act as a "buffer": the
larger they are, the more CO2 is bound in the system, and the larger is the
(still small) fraction of biomass that will be converted into fossil energy
(via turf, brown coal etc.).
However, the latter process affects only a small fraction of the biomass and is
comparatetively slow (how long does it take to make coal or oil out of trees?).
This is why I said that planting more forests and burning less of them is
certainly a good idea, but it probably won't get us back to the CO2 levels of
times before the industrial revolution any time soon.


Regards,
Gerrit

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