[user104658]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

That's a very dubious scientific fact ts.. leaves absorb CO2 and expel oxygen, trees leaves have a larger surface area for the area they inhabit than grass surely?
Also if the grass is for grazing how will it absorb anything if it's being eaten and farted out as methane?
Would hardly be a lush meadow would it?
Did the Brazilian govt produce the science there by any chance? :/

It's not dubious, like I said there are OTHER environmental considerations (huge ones) with grass vs. trees but the one that is thrown around all the time in the press / social media etc. is oxygen production... that we would lose 20% of the world's oxygen generation if the Amazon was completely replaced by farming / grazing... and it's just flat out false.

On the other hand, the ocean creates 50% of the planet's oxygen supply and we're slowly killing that, too... and that's not being replaced by anything at all. If the oceans die, we drop 50%, which is sort of terrifying really.

And I think grass removes less CO2 than an equivalent patch of rainforest... and CO2 in the atmosphere is raising the ocean's acidity levels... so I guess the numbers get even more complicated there, with the destruction also having other indirect effects.