The Burning Amazon Rainforest Doesn't Matter?

research center more than 72,000 fires have scorched the country this year okay [Music] you've probably heard something about what's going on the Sun blocked out by smoke in Sao Paulo fire is visible from space even the UN secretary-general tweeting about the importance of protecting the Amazon but before we get into the thick of things it might be a good idea to look at what the Amazon rainforest is why it's important and tackle some of the information floating around right now first we need to get something out of the way not all of the pictures of the Amazon fires spreading around are of the current fires some are of older fires including deforestation of the rainforest from the 1980s while others show fires from different parts of the world entirely now I want to be clear about this the situation in the Amazon is still serious just be aware of the sources are checking in when possible try to find supporting sources whenever you're not sure of where something originated the Amazon is the world's largest tropical rainforest it's almost 80% the size of Australia spanning 2.3 million square miles about 60% of it lies within Brazil and likewise the Amazon makes up about 40 percent of Brazil's territory it's also a richly diverse ecosystem in fact one of every ten species of animal lives in it animals aren't the only kind of life that the Amazon is rich in either it also contains over a million indigenous people who rely on the rainforests to live and a wide variety of plants some of these plants have been used in local medicines too and while further research is needed to determine the effectiveness of them as medical ingredients it would be a shame to lose them all those plants serve another important purpose too there is a direct link between the health of the Amazon rainforest and both local and global climates the lush foliage of rainforests absorbed solar radiation absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen back into the atmosphere on the topic of oxygen we have to talk about something well the figure that the Amazon rainforest is responsible for providing 20% of the Earth's oxygen is thrown around a lot it's not quite accurate while trees do create oxygen during photosynthesis they also respire just like animals do according to Philip fearenside a professor at Brazil's National Institute of Amazonian research trees use up most of the oxygen that they produce through photosynthesis how much oxygen does the Amazon rainforest actually produce well that takes a bit of calculation but it is something that we can track so strap in for this episode's dose of science according to Scotts eleska an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona the atmosphere is comprised of about 20 point 95 percent oxygen a figure that's not changing much solasko also put the figure that tropical vegetation is responsible for about 25 percent of oxygen produced by land-based photosynthesis and since the Amazon represents about half of those we can guess that it would represent about 12 to 13% of the total complicating things further land-based photosynthesis only accounts for about half of photosynthesis bringing that figure closer to 6% a figure that is supported by climate scientists like Michael Amman director of the Penn State Earth System science center and dr. jonathan foley director of project drawdown but what the Amazon does do is act as a massive carbon sink sucking up large quantities of carbon dioxide and when the trees are cut down that co2 is released into the atmosphere and as it degrades the entire rainforest will go from being a co to sink to being a net emitter of the gas and when enough trees are burned down in so close an area another toxic gas is released carbon monoxide if that sounds familiar it should carbon monoxide is a colorless odorless gas that is produced when wood burns without adequate access to oxygen according to NASA it can remain in the atmosphere for about a month and can impact air quality when blown by winds you probably even have an alarm in your home for it and prolonged exposure to it can result in well death according to NASA's atmospheric infrared sounder instrument aboard the Aqua satellite the Amazon fires have produced a massive plume of carbon monoxide that spreads beyond Brazil's borders even past the Pacific coast on top of that the Amazon is necessary to keep the surrounding areas hydrated the trees of the rainforest suck up rainwater through their roots which moves up into the canopy before being released into the air this process is called evapotranspiration which is a word I didn't have to say eight times and I'm not gonna say again and it's carried out by so many trees of the Amazon is the source of rainfall all the way up to California and the loss of these trees could result in drought speaking of California it's important to note that unlike forests in California or Africa which have adapted to a burn cycle the Amazon hasn't normally wet and humid the Amazon isn't meant to burn out of control like this that's not to say that there aren't questions to be asked about the fires in say the African savannah but it isn't as destructive as the deforestation in the Amazon and can even be good for the local ecology yes there is a dry season that lasts from around August to November and during this time natural fires do break out but the serious damage is caused by intentional fires set to clear land for mining operations agriculture or logging sad we get here well to answer that we're going to take a look at a bit of history back to the late 1970s before this time the majority of deforestation was carried out by subsistence farmers who were growing crops to be able to feed themselves but things started to change around 1978 driven by larger scale industrial activities such as soy farming land speculation illegal logging mining and the biggest of them all cattle grazing in fact things got so bad that the kind of blaze we're seeing burn the Amazon down now wouldn't have been out of place in the 1980s during which it was reported that the equivalent to a football field a minute was cut down American football our European the answer is doesn't matter it sucks for everyone situation grew dire enough that on September 18 1989 Time magazine made deforestation in the Amazon their front-page story complete with haunting cover illustration in the issue time warned that loss or damage to the Amazon would be a quote incalculable catastrophe for the entire planet and warned of a dramatic change to global weather patterns and heightened the warming trend that may result from the greenhouse effect a warning was even delivered to time by environmental scientists saying that unless things change the forests will disappear the peak of Amazon deforestation came in 2004 hitting nearly 11,000 square miles of annual deforestation but then something happened the international community got involved to stop what was seen as a crisis including Norway providing 1 billion dollars to Brazil's Amazon fund between 2008 and 2015 and Brazil passed laws to slow deforestation this saw the rate of deforestation plummet so what happened well it's a bit politically charged but in short a change in government priorities the past few presidents have made changes to the forest code their focus more on economic matters than environmental ones current president yaar Belson ro has faced criticism over his handling of the Amazon as his government removed environmental protections promoting agriculture and mining claiming at one point that non government organizations had set the fire to discredit his government though from all sources I could find there is no proof to back up these claims ok so that's what we got here now why does it seem like no one was reporting on the matter well according to the BBC they were they just weren't aware of how bad the issue was as early as July 2nd the BBC reported on deforestation using bulldozers to clear trees for agriculture and for illegal harvesting of valuable hardwood trees including satellite imaging of one region's logging from 1984 to 2018 of course it's not just Brazil that's on fire wildfires in the Amazon are also up this year in Olivia French Guana wanna peruse Suriname and Venezuela at the moment about 20% of the Amazon is already gone the ones thick canopy is replaced with grasslands for cow grazing or farms which brings us to the big question how long until it's just gone according to one article by the Guardian at our current rate about a century give or take though there are a few caveats to that too good more bad so let's start with the good just to take a break from the doom and gloom for a moment thankfully the Amazon can regrow according to yacht vendor Molly a professor of ecosystem science at the University of Oxford the forest takes about 20 to 40 years to regrow if allowed to regenerate but and he knew it was coming this regrowth can't happen just anywhere and since much of the land that has been cleared is now being used for agricultural purposes with people living on it a good portion can't be regrown at all that said there are now abandoned mines and pasture lands that were burning 15 years ago which have now been reforested though if the rainforest isn't given enough time to recover it may not matter anyways even if the Amazon isn't fully deforested by humans it is possible that we'll hit a point where the rainforest won't be able to support itself anymore now I do want to mention before we dig in too deep that there is still debate on this section however it has gained enough notice that my script goblin thought it was an important thing we talked about according to the World Wildlife Foundation the concern is that once we hit a certain point of rainforest destruction the Amazon will be caught in a series of feedback loops that will lead to its own extinction this process known as a die back of course that's what it's called is theorized to be what will happen once enough of the once thick wet canopy is replaced with drier and more fire-prone savanna grasslands and brush resulting in less rainfall drying out the forest more and leaving it unable to repair itself rinse and repeat scarier estimates say that this process would start when between 20 to 25% of the rainforest is lost also known as right now in the event of this particular doomsday scenario for the Amazon it is predicted that the brain force would stop soaking up carbon dioxide and begin releasing it instead and the scariest part we may not realize we've hit the point of no return until it's too late which leads us to the big question how long into the Amazon rainforest is just gone well at the current rate of deforestation and assuming that a dieback scenario could happen it might be gone by the end of the century other more pessimistic estimates say that a die back could happen as early as 2050 but hypothetically let's speed things up what if the Amazon rainforest were gone tomorrow well I can't say for sure but here's what it might look like based on our research first things first all the carbon stored in the rainforest will be released into the atmosphere which all at once would be a massive change plant and animal species that rely on the rainforest would have no habitat left and would likely go extinct without quick intervention and that's not mentioning the indigenous people who would be left homeless which you know is kind of a big deal the rainforest will be replaced with drier brush and savanna the soil which is naturally nutrient poor would be useful for crops for a while but sooner or later the nutrients would run out and leave the land unable to support farming more problematic would be the loss of rainwater since the trees in the rainforests are necessary for the evapotranspiration process without the rainforest the climate will quickly become drier from South America all the way up to the United States that means less rainfall meaning worse droughts meaning worse agriculture that's the thing we eat the rain from the Amazon and if it were gone tomorrow it wouldn't be long until we felt the repercussions and not all those repercussions would be direct like food droughts can cause Domino effects that hit communities harder for example lower crop yields mean farmers make less money harming local businesses it also means food costs more to be imported if droughts become severe enough they can cause river levels to drop arming hydro dams in the cost of electricity to your house this could also mean water supplies would diminish which is something that is more than a little important you know that stuff we use for bathing doing laundry watering lawns cooking how do you think your house would look without as much water everything is connected and drastic changes can have sweeping effects which leaves us where well since we started working on this episode a few things have happened Brazil's president bolson ro announced a ban on fire for clearing land for 60 days and dispatched the army to fight wildfires burning through the Amazon and South America countries are meeting to discuss a response the official figures for fire is now number at 87,000 the most active year since 2010 which incidentally is also the only year in the last decade with as much carbon dioxide released from the area now although this might lead one to think this is a terrifying situation with a slew of potential long-term consequences well I've done the research and I mean yeah kind of sorry but this whole situation is just kind of a bummer I'll be honest I don't even really know how to end this one look look we even had it a bit here about the ramifications this whole situation has on coffee production we're gonna add at the end and I was gonna be like but yeah so yeah I don't think it fits this whole thing's just I don't know it feels bigger than that rainforest is burning and that's pretty awful you

Channel: Brew

Views: 650,073

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Keywords: amazon rainforest, amazon rainforest fire, amazon fire, rainforest fire, investigation, investigate, discovery, brew, theories, solved mystery, unsolved mystery, unsolved mysteries, unsolved cases, mystery, unsolved, solved mysteries

Id: zIUuLaUbbNc

Length: 14min 41sec (881 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 07 2019