The idea that most of the world's oxygen comes from rain forests is all a big myth. The Los Angeles Times reports that massive burning means that the Amazon Rain Forest is actually causing pollution instead of helping clean it up. Most of the article deals with logging and 'save the rainforests' crap, but if you read down far enough you'll discover that even without the burning, we still wouldn't get any oxygen gain from rain forests.

Even without the massive burning, the popular conception of the Amazon as a giant oxygen factory for the rest of the planet is misguided, scientists say. Left unmolested, the forest does generate enormous amounts of oxygen through photosynthesis, but it consumes most of it itself in the decomposition of organic matter. . .

"Concern about the environmental aspects of deforestation now is more over climate rather than [carbon emissions] or whether the Amazon is the 'lungs of the world,' " said Paulo Barreto, a researcher with the Amazon Institute of People and Environment.

"For sure, the Amazon is not the lungs of the world," he added. "It never was."

Of course if you've been reading Ravenwood's Universe regularly you already know that the "lungs of the world" are the oceans, filled with plant plankton. Two-thirds of the earth's surface is water, and plant plankton dutifully converts carbon dioxide into oxygen. That is, when the whales aren't scooping them up by the truck load for food. It would seem obvious then, that the solution to global warming is to protect plant plankton by slaughtering whales. With an absence of predators, plant plankton will overpopulate and drastically cut CO₂ levels.