There is a doomsday scenario for the burning Amazon — the irreversible point at which the tropical land can no longer sustain itself as a flourishing, vital rainforest. What's less certain is exactly when that threshold, driven by a collapse in the climatic system that feeds the forest, will get crossed, though it may be quite soon. What's more certain, though, is humanity is speeding along on the tipping point interstate.
The rise in fires set in the Amazon this year, stoked by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's encouragement of large-scale deforestation for logging and agriculture, is emblematic of the region's persistent deforestation woes: Some fires are set to clear forest that has already been chopped down, many fires are the reburning of already deforested agricultural land, and some fires are escaped, uncontrolled blazes. This year has been the most active burning season since 2010. But it's not nearly on par with the extreme deforestation of the '90s and early aughts, a darker time, which Rhett Butler, a journalist who has reported on the Amazon for decades and is the founder of the conservation news site Read more...
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