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Why are we so concerned with oxygen production yet we never hear about nitrogen production, though we actually need 78% nitrogen vs 21% oxygen to survive? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by LillyPip@lemmy.ca to c/askscience@lemmy.world

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Excess oxygen is actually harmful to humans, ~~but all the climate warnings are about losing oxygen, not nitrogen~~ edit: but when we look for habitable planets, our focus is ‘oxygen rich atmosphere’, not ‘nitrogen rich’, and in medical settings, we’re always concerned about low oxygen, not nitrogen.

Deep sea divers also use a nitrogen mix (nitrox) to stay alive and help prevent the bends, so nitrogen seems pretty important.

It seems weird that our main focus is oxygen when our main air intake is nitrogen. What am I missing?

edit: my climate example was poor and I think misleading. Added a better example instead.

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[–] sexy_peach@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's about CO2 concentration, not about oxygen production.

[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

That makes sense, thanks, since our threshold for co2 is less than 0.5%.

I may have worded my question poorly; I’m more asking why low oxygen is a problem vs low nitrogen. In retrospect, my climate focus may be distracting. It was what made me wonder about this in the first place, but the medical and scuba points are much more relevant. That has little to do with co2 (I think?) and more to do with the relative compounds in our air.

I’m still confused why we hear about oxygen but never nitrogen. Another example: when we look for habitable planets, the focus is ‘oxygen rich atmosphere’, but not ‘nitrogen rich’.

[–] sexy_peach@feddit.de 0 points 11 months ago

Maybe nitrogen could be replaced with other gases, but we need oxygen in our lungs and bloodstream to survive. So maybe it's more important for our survival?