<
https://e360.yale.edu/features/2025-film-contest-third-place-amazon-tipping-point>
"Under increasing threats from rampant deforestation and climate change,
portions of the Amazon now emit more carbon to the atmosphere than they absorb.
The southern Amazon, in particular, has become hotter and drier, with less soil
moisture, lowered water tables, and a higher than normal rate of tree
mortality. Scientists now believe the Amazon could reach its tipping point —
when it loses its natural ability to regenerate and will become permanently
degraded — as soon as 2050. The impacts will reverberate globally.
Last summer, filmmakers Fer Ligabue, Jacqueline Lisboa, and Solange Azevedo,
working with the World Wide Fund for Nature-Brazil, visited eastern Mato
Grosso, filming dramatic aerial images of forest that gives way to vast tracts
of land cleared and burned for agriculture. They interviewed scientists who
study the forest’s response to increased drought and heat and Indigenous
leaders who, surrounded by encroaching ranches, roads, and energy
infrastructure, feel as if they are being “suffocated.” Already, plants and
animals that provide them with sustenance are disappearing.
“Nature is giving us a sign,” Beatriz Schwantes Marimon, a plant ecologist at
the State University of Mato Grosso, tells the filmmakers. “‘I’m not well. I’m
dying.’”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
