Amazon trees

Environmentalism is ripe for a bit of debunking.

The Jakarta Post's July 10, 1995, article ($7.1 billion earmarked for preserving Amazon) calls the Amazon's jungle the "lungs of the world because of the oxygen that the lush vegetation emits." Our lungs take in oxygen and give off CO2, which is the gas that allegedly traps heat in the atmosphere. Therefore, if that jungle were the lungs of the world, it should be cut down because it would be contributing to global warming.

The fact is that trees in the Amazon--or a rice paddy here for that matter--produce oxygen from water and CO2 by the process of photosynthesis, mainly while they are growing and only under sunlight. The Greenpeace types should know this. It is taught to fourth grade kids in Brazil. Greenpeace, with an income of 130 million dollars and a staff of 12,000, makes me wary of the people who earn their living defending their ideals.

OSVALDO COELHO

Bandung, West Java