Does the Amazon provide 20% of our oxygen? • Hacker News Board

Re: Does the Amazon provide 20% of our oxygen?

#111

Post by rayiner » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 4:05 AM UTC

majos wrote: post #33

wcunning wrote: post #3

The basic gist of the article is found about 1/2 way in: "First, the phytoplankton in the oceans also photosynthesise [...] Therefore in terms of TOTAL global photosynthesis, photosynthesis in the Amazon contributes around 9%. [...] Second, a bigger point that is often missed is that the Amazon consumes about as much oxygen as it produces." This reminds me, as we should all be reminded on a regular basis, the bulk of…

I don't quite get the claim behind the Gell-Mann effect. It assumes that because journalism about physics is inaccurate and oversimplified, journalism about everything else is too. But why should this be? Physics, and similar hard sciences, are deep and complex fields. There's plenty of math, jargon, and a long literature. Of course inaccurate simplifications happen when writing about it for a popular audience. Add i…

Politics and business are incredibly complicated as well. In many ways it’s even harder to do reporting in those areas because there is no expert consensus you can consult. Is lowering corporate taxes better for the economy? There is little consensus. Even reporting “what people did” can be fraught with peril. (E.g. reporting that a company “paid no taxes” without addressing loss carry forwards.) Political and business systems, and in particular complex regulatory regimes like tax policy, are the product of many decades of refinement. Because journalists for the most part are ignorant of that history, they present every policy issue in this sort of context free way, leaning heavily on narrative and emotion to make up for their shallow understanding of the actual mechanics of what they’re writing about.

Re: Does the Amazon provide 20% of our oxygen?

#112

Post by verall » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 4:22 AM UTC

umeshunni wrote: post #109

mattkrause wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about that specifically, but reporting on politics is much closer to the paper's core competency. The paper runs articles on politics every single day . The characters and issues don't change too quickly: Quimby was the mayor last week; next week, he'll be the same mayor, dogged by the same scandals and trying to enact the same politics too. A lot of the facts are easy to check, if someone cared to do so…

> reporting on politics is much closer to the paper's core competency. And despite this, most of the media got the two of the most significant political happenings of the last 5 years (US elections and Brexit) completely wrong.

Comments like this are great.

By saying "most of media gets it wrong" without any examples, everyone agrees, and noone needs to think about what the media said or what happened at all. Everyone reading can be right and everyone else can be wrong at the same time.

Less snarkily - what media narrative are you referencing specifically? What do you believe occured instead? There was much media covering many angles on both of these issues.

Re: Does the Amazon provide 20% of our oxygen?

#113

Post by EGreg » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 4:38 AM UTC

I have a question about trees:

If trees sequester carbon in their trunks and release oxygen, what do they use the oxygen for at night, and how come they are oxygen-neutral, do they store it somehow?

Also, if the Amazon is a carbon sink today, what about if there was dieback? It would turn into a carbon source, but how? Don’t the “unit economics” of trees remain the same?

Re: Does the Amazon provide 20% of our oxygen?

#114

Post by strainer » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 4:59 AM UTC

wcunning wrote: post #3

The basic gist of the article is found about 1/2 way in: "First, the phytoplankton in the oceans also photosynthesise [...] Therefore in terms of TOTAL global photosynthesis, photosynthesis in the Amazon contributes around 9%. [...] Second, a bigger point that is often missed is that the Amazon consumes about as much oxygen as it produces." This reminds me, as we should all be reminded on a regular basis, the bulk of…

The blogged claim that Amazon "consumes about as much oxygen as it produces" is not sourced and the piece seems to fly in the face of professional work on the subject. eg: "The global oxygen budget and its future projection" [1]

> Fig. 4 summarizes the annual averaged global O2 budget from year 1990 to 2005, with the mass of O2 in gigatonnes (Gt) listed in each sink and for each process mentioned above (see Section 2.5). The inputs of O2 to the atmosphere by land and outgassing from oceans are quantified as 16.01 and 1.74 Gt/a, respectively. ....

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S209592731...

Re: Does the Amazon provide 20% of our oxygen?

#115

Post by untog » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 5:02 AM UTC

umeshunni wrote: post #109

mattkrause wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about that specifically, but reporting on politics is much closer to the paper's core competency. The paper runs articles on politics every single day . The characters and issues don't change too quickly: Quimby was the mayor last week; next week, he'll be the same mayor, dogged by the same scandals and trying to enact the same politics too. A lot of the facts are easy to check, if someone cared to do so…

> reporting on politics is much closer to the paper's core competency. And despite this, most of the media got the two of the most significant political happenings of the last 5 years (US elections and Brexit) completely wrong.

What does "got wrong" mean in this context, though? People said the media got those things wrong because they said "90% chance Clinton wins" and Trump won. But that's why they said 90%, not 100%. It feels as though the concept of probabilities is either misunderstood or willfully ignored to score points.

Re: Does the Amazon provide 20% of our oxygen?

#116

Post by untog » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 5:09 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #111

majos wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite get the claim behind the Gell-Mann effect. It assumes that because journalism about physics is inaccurate and oversimplified, journalism about everything else is too. But why should this be? Physics, and similar hard sciences, are deep and complex fields. There's plenty of math, jargon, and a long literature. Of course inaccurate simplifications happen when writing about it for a popular audience. Add i…

Politics and business are incredibly complicated as well. In many ways it’s even harder to do reporting in those areas because there is no expert consensus you can consult. Is lowering corporate taxes better for the economy? There is little consensus. Even reporting “what people did” can be fraught with peril. (E.g. reporting that a company “paid no taxes” without addressing loss carry forwards.) Political and busine…

I think where the comparison breaks down is that the laws of physics are the laws of physics. Reporting on them doesn't change them. But politics lives in the same world as reporting. It is shaped by it, politicians respond to it. So the Gell-Mann effect isn't quite accurate in that situation. Journalists do know the political world deeply because for better or worse they're involved in shaping it.

Re: Does the Amazon provide 20% of our oxygen?

#117

Post by squirrelicus » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 5:24 AM UTC

tl;dr the rule holds, the answer is no. :]

Though i have to admit to bring skeptical of his analysis that suggests the rainforest is a net zero on oxygen production.

Re: Does the Amazon provide 20% of our oxygen?

#118

Post by smadge » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 5:31 AM UTC

wcunning wrote: post #3

The basic gist of the article is found about 1/2 way in: "First, the phytoplankton in the oceans also photosynthesise [...] Therefore in terms of TOTAL global photosynthesis, photosynthesis in the Amazon contributes around 9%. [...] Second, a bigger point that is often missed is that the Amazon consumes about as much oxygen as it produces." This reminds me, as we should all be reminded on a regular basis, the bulk of…

I think the charitable interpretation of the use of the “20% of the earths oxygen” statistic (as the article states this is probably more like 9% of earths photosynthesis) is not about an imagined fear of oxygen depletion, but drawing attention to how massive and important an ecosystem the Amazon is.

Re: Does the Amazon provide 20% of our oxygen?

#119

Post by jchallis » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 5:37 AM UTC

majos wrote: post #33

wcunning wrote: post #3

The basic gist of the article is found about 1/2 way in: "First, the phytoplankton in the oceans also photosynthesise [...] Therefore in terms of TOTAL global photosynthesis, photosynthesis in the Amazon contributes around 9%. [...] Second, a bigger point that is often missed is that the Amazon consumes about as much oxygen as it produces." This reminds me, as we should all be reminded on a regular basis, the bulk of…

I don't quite get the claim behind the Gell-Mann effect. It assumes that because journalism about physics is inaccurate and oversimplified, journalism about everything else is too. But why should this be? Physics, and similar hard sciences, are deep and complex fields. There's plenty of math, jargon, and a long literature. Of course inaccurate simplifications happen when writing about it for a popular audience. Add i…

In the initial formulation of the Gell-Mann effect, Michael Crichton noted that the coverage of show business was equally simplified.

From discussions with my wife, who is board certified in infectious diseases, newspaper coverage of the following topics are simplified to the point of losing the main point: antimicrobial resistance, any tropical disease from malaria to Ebola, organ rejection.

I think the problem is universal not specific.

Re: Does the Amazon provide 20% of our oxygen?

#120

Post by luckylion » Sun, Aug 25, 2019, 6:08 AM UTC

smadge wrote: post #118

wcunning wrote: post #3

The basic gist of the article is found about 1/2 way in: "First, the phytoplankton in the oceans also photosynthesise [...] Therefore in terms of TOTAL global photosynthesis, photosynthesis in the Amazon contributes around 9%. [...] Second, a bigger point that is often missed is that the Amazon consumes about as much oxygen as it produces." This reminds me, as we should all be reminded on a regular basis, the bulk of…

I think the charitable interpretation of the use of the “20% of the earths oxygen” statistic (as the article states this is probably more like 9% of earths photosynthesis) is not about an imagined fear of oxygen depletion, but drawing attention to how massive and important an ecosystem the Amazon is.

That's likely, but we could pretend it's 80% with the same reasoning - and it has an even larger effect with regard to drawing attention to the importance.