Amazon Rainforest Destabilizes the World
MARCH 17, 2023
BY ROBERT HUNZIKER
Image by Vlad Hilitanu.
A new 40-year study discovered the eye-opening fact that what happens in the Amazon Rainforest impacts the entire Earth system. This puts an exclamation point on the fact that the Amazon Rainforest, the planets most crucial source of life support, is in deep trouble mainly because of massive deforestation.
The Amazon River Basin is the worlds largest rainforest, larger than the next two largest rainforests combined, the Congo Basin and Indonesia, and roughly the size of the forty-eight contiguous United States covering 40% of South America including parts of Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana Suriname and French Guiana.
According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF): The Amazon is of vital importance because people around the world, as well as locally, depend on the rainforest. Not just for food, water, wood and medicines, but to help stabilize the climatearound 76 billion tonnes of carbon is stored in the Amazon rainforest., The trees in the Amazon also release 20 billion tonnes of water into the atmosphere per day, playing a critical role in global and regional carbon and water cycles.
The 40-year study links Amazonian deforestation to reduced Tibetan snows and Antarctic ice loss. Both carry serious consequences, respectively, loss of natures water towers for millions of people as sea levels rise everywhere.
More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/17/amazon-rainforest-destabilizes-the-world/