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164 points bikenaga | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.199s | source
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htamas ◴[] No.45399285[source]
The Amazon forest is unique in many ways but most importantly because unlike other forests, it CANNOT grow back. The reason for this is that it is a leftover from when the planet was covered in rainforests because it was a lot warmer and wetter in the Eocene epoch. The forest is sustained by the rain it creates from itself. Once the trees are gone, the water will be gone. [1] We also have reasons to think this self-sustaining climate is going to collapse soon [2]

So far the best way to protect it I have found is through the Rainforest Trust [3] which is a foundation that's trying to purchase and protect parts of the rainforests that companies would otherwise cut or burn down for agricultural use.

[1]https://youtu.be/hb3b-A6QAc8

[2]https://www.nasa.gov/earth-and-climate/human-activities-are-...

[3]https://www.rainforesttrust.org

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woah ◴[] No.45399309[source]
> The reason for this is that it is a leftover from when the planet was covered in rainforests because it was a lot warmer and wetter in the Eocene epoch.

Won't it get much warmer and wetter once global warming hits, allowing the rainforest to grow back?

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1. XorNot ◴[] No.45399529[source]
Global warming will not reforest the planet with a substantially different biosphere to set the conditions for the Amazon to regrow and then persist.

I mean I suppose it could but contingent on that would be things like "thousands of years" and "likely substantial extinction of human population centers".