We know how plants make oxygen, why can’t we automate that process and not worry about losing plants?
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Replicating nature is a terrible plan because nature is not the best at anything, its just good enough and arrived at the end result through a series of random mutations
We can generate oxygen from CO2 easier. NASA has a module on Perseverance for doing this. It takes 300W and generates about 4 liters of oxygen per hour. Your average house plant only makes about 100 mL per hour so a MOXIE is wayyyy better than even a shrub
But we’re not worried about trees for oxygen production, most of that comes from algae in the ocean anyway. We’re worried about trees for biodiversity and erosion. There are lots of things in jungles and deep forests we don’t understand including some plants with medicinal properties we haven’t had a chance to study yet. Losing large amounts of forests would destroy all the other plants and animals that live in there and would expose the area to significant erosion and likely dry it out.
Plants do wayyyy more for us than create oxygen, that’s probably their least important attribute. Their ability to hold large quantities of dirt in place and slowly release moisture back to the air keeps their environments a bit more stable which makes them a bit better for us to live in.
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