How would chopping down all the forests affect our environment.

I read about a study a few years back about the actual affect of the trees on the oxygen output of trees and how they don't exchange co2 for oxygen at nearly the rate we thought they did(sorry I don't have the link), remember how you were told in elementary that the forest was supporting the whole environment.

It just came up in an argument I was having with my buddy and I was wondering, and concluded that surely that theory must be false bc I can only imagine it would be devastating to the environment if all the trees were cut down all over the globe, surely the atmosphere would become toxic and render the earth uninhabitable, wouldn't it? Can anyone find any peer reviewed data concerning this? Any opinions welcome.

I'm not sure about the study you are referencing, but I do think the rate at which CO2 -> O2 is only part of the issue. If all trees were to be chopped down, and assuming they decomposed, all of the carbon stored in the cellulose would be released back into the atmosphere as CO2 (from cellular respiration). So we'd have a lot more CO2, plus those trees would no longer be converting the CO2 to O2... would probably not be a good thing for us.

Your premise that the forestry industry wants to cut down all the trees on the planet is ridiculous/implausible/impossible. Please let there not be government funded studies on the impact of cutting down all trees on the planet.

Bugeye said:

Your premise that the forestry industry wants to cut down all the trees on the planet is ridiculous/implausible/impossible. Please let there not be government funded studies on the impact of cutting down all trees on the planet.

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No no I know they don't plan on cutting down all the trees just saying what would the impact be if we were to lose all the trees.

It would utterly destroy the environment as we know it, without fail.

Disregard the oxygen exchange altogether and you still have to think about where all the forest animals are going to live.

Glaucoma said:

It would utterly destroy the environment as we know it, without fail.

Disregard the oxygen exchange altogether and you still have to think about where all the forest animals are going to live.

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Yes I know it would destroy the habitat of all terrestrial animals but what affect would it have on the atmosphere itself? Are the forests maintaining a balance of co2 and oxygen? Without the trees would our atmosphere support life?

New Age United said:

Yes I know it would destroy the habitat of all terrestrial animals but what affect would it have on the atmosphere itself? Are the forests maintaining a balance of co2 and oxygen? Without the trees would our atmosphere support life?

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Yes, anaerobic bacteria will be thriving!