{"id":2016,"date":"2012-07-03T08:36:41","date_gmt":"2012-07-03T07:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=2016"},"modified":"2012-07-03T08:36:41","modified_gmt":"2012-07-03T07:36:41","slug":"when-the-amazon-is-gone-well-have-40-less-atmospheric-oxygen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2012\/07\/03\/when-the-amazon-is-gone-well-have-40-less-atmospheric-oxygen\/","title":{"rendered":"When the Amazon is gone we'll have 40% less atmospheric oxygen"},"content":{"rendered":"

I received an email Network Link<\/a> newsletter from UNESCO UK the other day, and was pleased to see that it contained a number of references to education, including two focused on sustainability. \u00a0One was about ESD in Practice:<\/em><\/p>\n

T<\/strong><\/span>o raise the visibility of\u00a0Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)<\/span> in the lead up to the\u00a0Rio+20 conference this month UNESCO published a series of ESD success stories from around the globe<\/span>. \u00a0With the help of the UKNC, the WWF project \"School's Global Footprint\" in Scotland was covered as an excellent example of ESD in practice<\/span>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When you click on the link it takes you to a feature on Lawthorn<\/a> primary school, Ayrshire, which begins with this statement:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Amazon<\/em> is gone we will have 40 per cent less atmospheric oxygen.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This quote is from a ten\u2010year\u2010old boy who\u2019s a member of the school's eco\u2010committee. \u00a0The article then details the school's many achievements, including 4 green flags. \u00a0Happily, it also says how useful the UNESCO website has been:<\/p>\n

The school say that the UNESCO website has been a huge help, providing resources and giving suggestions which have sparked the children\u2019s imagination and encouraged them to conduct their own research online. \u00a0Several speakers have visited the school, from UNESCO and other organisations. \u00a0As [principal teacher] Ms Milne says, \u201cIt allows the children to do research, to see where they all fit in to the world, and to bring all the information together.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Just so. \u00a0I guess this is where the idea came from that our oxygen levels are going to drop to 13% (from the current 21%) if the Amazon forests are cut down? \u00a0 For example, this easily-found \u00a0website<\/a> simply says that: \u00a0\"Tropical rainforests produce 40% of Earth's oxygen<\/em>\".<\/p>\n

But this notion of \"production\" is a problem as it\u00a0confuses the net production of oxygen with its turnover, as any organism that is photosynthesising (where there is oxygen production) will also be respiring (where there's oxygen use) and so, whilst the turnover may be substantial, any net production may well be much lower, and this appears to be the case with rain forests, and a significant component of net oxygen comes out of the oceans courtesy of phytoplankton and cyanobacteria photosynthesis. \u00a0The boy's conclusion also ignores the interconnectedness of systems as rain forests, and what happens there, are not isolated from the rest of the biosphere, which is probably the more serious point. [1] \u00a0[2]<\/p>\n

Whilst I can understand that the boy might not know this, or many of the undoubted subtleties involved (which I don't understand either), why didn't his teacher recognise nonsense when (s)he saw, and how come UNESCO editors didn't spot it? \u00a0Can this really be, as UNECO says, \"an excellent example of ESD in practice\"? \u00a0Either way, it does raise questions (again) about what's being taught (or learned at any rate) in schools about ecological \/ systems issues. Enthusiasm is not enough. [3] \u00a0[4]<\/p>\n

Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> That said, the % of atmospheric oxygen does seem to be falling rather faster than the CO2 increase would suggest \u2013 around 6\u201310 ppm\/year. \u00a0Given the existing concentration is around 209 460 ppm, it will be a while before we get to 13% (130 000 ppm). \u00a0However, it's clear that we humans would be past caring long before this.<\/p>\n

[2] <\/a>And, just to complicated matters further, the loss of (rain)forests will likely have some effect on oxygen \/ carbon dioxide transport and turnover \u2013 just nowhere near what the boy thinks.<\/p>\n

[3] I'm told that this error (a misconception, I guess) has been around for some time, though I'd not come across it. \u00a0Memo: shold get out more ...<\/p>\n

[4] Whilst I immediately saw the problem with the boy's 40% statement<\/em>, I subsequently found it very difficult to pin down the ins and outs of net oxygen production \u2013 even to the very limited extent that I did. \u00a0Perhaps some of Mr Gradgrind's \"facts\" might have come in handy here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I received an email Network Link newsletter from UNESCO UK the other day, and was pleased to see that it contained a number of references to education, including two focused on sustainability. \u00a0One was about ESD in Practice: To raise...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-new-publications","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}