Question

Question #b0240

Answer 1

Forests provide a lot of oxygen via photosynthesis. If they disappear, most probably life on earth will disappear.

Explanation:

Forests provide a lot of oxygen. Since tree species are producers, via photosynthesis under sunny conditions and water sufficient circumstances:

`6CO_2 + 6H_2O -> C_6H_12O_6 + 6O_2`

they capture carbondioxide and produce oxygen.

If forests die, our atmosphere will loose oxygen because forests provide a lot of oxygen. Think about human being only. The population is 7.4 billion and we inhale `20 m^3` (air) (per person) per day. We need total `20times0.21times7.4times10^9 m^3` oxygen each day, which is `31 billion m^3` of oxygen (assuming 21% of atmosphere is oxygen and everyone is adult in the World). In this analysis, I did not take transportation, industry, home heating into account. If you say 1 cubic meter of oxygen (gas) is 1.4 kilograms (at 5 degrees C, for instance), you can convert 31 billion cubic meters of oxygen per day into 43.4 billion kg of oxygen per day.

One tree can produce 118 kilograms of oxygen per year (https://www.thoughtco.com/how-much-oxygen-does-one-tree-produce-606785). It means one mature tree can provide 0.32 kg of oxygen per day. Now you can get an idea how largely we depend on trees and forests. How many mature and healthy trees do we need to get 43.4 billion kg of oxygen per day? The answer is almost 136 billion trees. It means 18 trees must exists per person just to provide oxygen we need to survive.

We needs billions and billions of trees in the World, they must be healthy, they must be in good condition. Otherwise, an ecological crisis will happen.