Do you want to hear something truly chilling this Halloween? A terrifying event is occurring in the Brazilian rainforest. Something not factored into climate models, with the ability to disrupt Earth’s equilibrium. For the first time in recorded history, the southeast region of Amazonia has morphed from a carbon sink into a carbon source, releasing more CO2 than it can naturally absorb. But to better understand its villain origin story, let’s first take a look at how it started.
What is a carbon sink and why are they so special?
A carbon sink is an area that can absorb more carbon than it naturally emits. Through photosynthesis, a sink extracts carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and fosters an environment crucial to life on Earth. Forests are typically carbon sinks, oceans too — the Amazon rainforest is our best example. But the existence of such a powerful natural wonder implies the presence of a more destructive counterpart. This is the carbon source.
Burning coal to make electricity or rearing livestock for food can be categorized as carbon sources. These processes have devastating effects on the planet’s health and longevity. Heaving under the stress of relentless demand for natural resources, our Earth is balancing on the edge of catastrophe. In the Amazon basin, a verdant land impacted by a cocktail of deforestation, droughts, and forest fires, we’re seeing that the fragile ecosystem is on the verge of changing irreparably. Now let that sink in.
Off the back of 2023, the hottest year ever recorded, researchers are highlighting the gravitas of the situation. Speaking at New York Climate Week, Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research said:
“Nature has so far balanced our abuse. This is coming to an end.”
So what has triggered this transformation from sink to source?
Deforestation: As of 2017, more than 13% of the Amazon rainforest had been cleared, primarily for livestock and crops. By 2019, deforestation rates under the administration of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, had dramatically surged. A report published in February suggests that “to avoid broad-scale ecosystem transitions,” deforestation must end, and at least 5% of the biome should be restored through reforestation initiatives.
Drought: Linked to a climate phenomenon called ‘El Niño’, the prolonged dry spells in one of the Earth’s most tropical regions are alarming. In periods of drought, plants change their physiological structure to prevent excessive water loss, which has longer term effects on plant carbon cycling and soil quality.
Forest Fires: You’d think the Amazon rainforest is fireproof. Under normal conditions, this is largely the case, but in 2015, Erika Berenguer, an ecologist at the University of Oxford and Lancaster University, bore witness to a catastrophic fire that ravaged the region and destroyed over 14 years of personal research. By the time the dry season ended, fires had cleared one million hectares of primary forest, an area larger than Cyprus, and an estimated 2.5 billion trees were dead.
“I just collapsed crying, just sat down in the ashes,” Berenguer recalls.
The fires produced as much CO2 as Brazil releases from burning fossil fuels in one year. It was noted that scorched plants and forests continued to die at a rate above the norm for up to three years after the event in 2015, further exacerbating the atmospheric balance.
Trick or treat: can anything be done to fix this crisis?
Tricks to support our ecosystems:
- Learn from, and support, Indigenous peoples in their environmental stewardship.
- Protect and restore the forest.
- The MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative has begun using innovative sensors and robotics to track the health of ecosystems and utilizing AI to pinpoint regions in deforestation risk zones.
Treats to remind ourselves solutions are possible:
- The Congo basin, the planet’s second largest tropical rainforest, is a carbon sink stalwart, continuing to remove carbon and challenge the effects of climate change.
- Since 2021, 60 countries that previously lacked net zero goals now have them. Furthermore, an EU mandate insists all 27 member states reduce emissions by 55% by 2030, with a net-zero goal for 2050.
To safeguard our future, we can turn to nature-based solutions. Practices like agroforestry promote a healthier carbon balance, but one of the most simple solutions lies in trees. Without trees and the protection they provide us, our planet’s story would take a haunted turn, scarier, by far, than the horrors of Halloween.
Sources: Forest Trends, World Bank, World Economic Forum, MIT, Nature, Science Direct, Le Monde, Nat Geo, Amazon Watch, Oxford University, Our World in data
