Historic Amazon rainforest fires threaten climate and raise risk of new diseases
The fires in the Amazon region in 2019 were unprecedented in their destruction. Thousands of fires had burned more than 7,600 square kilometers by October that year. In 2020, things are no better and, in all likelihood, may be worse.
Despite the surge in fires, international attention has waned in 2020, likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet the degradation of the Amazon rainforest has profound consequences from climate change to global health.
The Amazon rainforest covers approximately eight million square kilometers—an area larger than Australia—and is home to an astounding amount of biodiversity.
It helps balance the global carbon budget by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and plays a key role in the global water cycle, stabilizing global climate and rainfall. If the annual fires burning the Amazon are not curtailed, one of the world’s largest carbon sinks will progressively devolve into a carbon faucet, releasing more carbon dioxide than it sequesters.