MYTHS ABOUT THE PLANET

Trees produce the oxygen we breathe: FALSE

Although there is a belief that trees produce oxygen for us to breathe, the truth is that 80% of the oxygen produced on the planet comes from. . . the sea!

There are also ecosystems in the sea, and there are many oxygen-producing organisms, especially some marine plants, such as phytoplankton. Yet, human beings only part of the oxygen we breathe is produced by the oceans.

So where do we get the oxygen to breathe?

Much of the oxygen in the atmosphere comes from the moment of “The Great Oxygenation". In the first million years of the planet, there was hardly any oxygen. It was at the time when bacteria and microscopic plants appeared on land and sea and, later, larger plants doing photosynthesis, when the oxygen we breathe was produced. This happened 500 million years ago and oxygen is still in the atmosphere.

Still, there are other good reasons to conserve our forests and oceans!

The greenhouse effect is due to climate change.

This is FALSE. The greenhouse effect is the generation of layers in the atmosphere that allow the sun’s heat to come in but do not allow it to come out again. So, the earth is like a greenhouse garden, where the air is kept hotter thanks to the plastic in the greenhouse.

It is true that the increase in the thickness of the layer of greenhouse gases is due to climate change and is dangerous because it involves an increase in the temperature of the earth.

But the greenhouse effect already existed before climate change and it is necessary to keep the temperature of the planet more or less stable, at an average temperature of 15 degrees across the planet. The greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon!

CO₂is a toxic gas.