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Comment by olivermarks | Hacker News Reader

Environmental fashion became obsessed with trees as 'the lungs of the planet' despite ocean phytoplankton processing most of the air we breath.

We have been conditioned to believe humans are destroying the fragile planet but ironically the reality is that we are increasingly irresponsible stewards of it, flying in the face of thousands of years of evidence.

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> ocean phytoplankton processing most of the air we breath.

This is not true.

Ocean photosynthesis produces about 50% of the oxygen in the atmosphere, but ocean respiration also consumes about the same amount. The oceans are about oxygen neutral. Same goes for the other 50%, but in land ecosystems.

https://theconversation.com/humans-will-always-have-oxygen-t...

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/activity/save-the-plankto...

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ocean-oxygen.html

'Phytoplankton are responsible for most of the transfer of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the ocean. Carbon dioxide is consumed during photosynthesis, and the carbon is incorporated in the phytoplankton, just as carbon is stored in the wood and leaves of a tree'.

The air we breathe is processed by Phytoplankton

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Phytoplankton#:~:....

We're killing the phytoplankton too.

https://medium.com/climate-conscious/how-the-loss-of-phytopl...

Well, that plancton will die off, when the oceans get accidic.. so it will be the trees only in the long run.

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