Geoff: The fate of the Amazon
rain forest is a new hands after
Brazil's closest election in
decades.
President-Elect Lula da silva
made fighting the climate crisis
and protecting the Amazon a
cornerstone of his campaign.
Deforestation accelerated under
current president bolsonaro.
In the first half of 2022, the
Amazon lost an area five times
the size of New York City.
Joining us now to talk more
about the future of the world's
largest reinforce is Michael
man, presidential distinguished
professor and director of the
center for science,
sustainability, and the media at
the university of Pennsylvania.
Ehs''also the author of the new
climate wars.
>> It is great to be with you.
Geoff: Over the past 50 years
the Amazon has lost about 17% of
its total Forrest.
Help us understand why the
world's largest rain forest is
important to the global
ecosystem.
>> It is important in lots of
ways.
Obviously the Amazon as a source
of extensive bio diversity,
many of the medicines we've
developed in recent times have
come, for example, from plants
that grow in that unique
environment.
But, when it comes to the
climate crisis,the Amazon is
one of the most important carbon
sinks on the planet.
It sucks carbon out of the
atmosphere and it buries it
beneath the ground in its root
systems and in the leaf litter.
So it is very -- it's a very
important way that the Earth
system has to moderate the
concentration of CO2, of carbon
dioxide.
And when we destroy rain
forests, when we D forest, when
we burn wood, when we clear it,
that puts carbon back into the
atmosphere.
So, there have been some
estimates that if we continue on
the course that we have been on
in recent decades, then the
Amazon rain forest will go from
being a very important carbon
sink, that is taking carbon
out of the atmosphere, it will
become a source, adding to the
net carbon pollution.
So, it's critical that we
reverse course and stop the
continued destruction of this
very important component of the
Earth system.
>> That his entity because
Brazil had been a model for
conservation, protecting
indigenous lands, cracking down
on illegal logging and
monitoring forest lost.
That was rolled back under
bolsonaro, he was a cheerleader
for the exploitation of the
Amazon.
What are some measures you
believe would help restore the
Amazon rain forest?
>> Yeah, I'm encouraged by much
of what da silva has said.
I'm encouraged by the Brazilian
electorate, the people demanded
a better environmental
stewardship and climate action.
Somebody who will take them on a
different course.
What that different course will
look like is protecting these
rain -- forests, not
continuing to allow them to be
destroyed for farming or
mining or other commercial
purposes.
So we can still ensure that the
Amazon remains a carbon sink,
and it helps us when it comes to
the climate crisis.
But that will only be true if we
act quickly, if we reverse those
previous policies.
Geoff: As you know cop 27, the
U.N. Climate change conference,
is under wipe her thinking
globally, how important is the
restoration of the Amazon to
reaching our overall climate
change goals?
>> It is critical.
And it sort of relates to a
larger problem, which is the
industrial countries of the
world, the United States as the
world's largest cumulatively
carbon polluter, we need to make
sure the developing world, and
that includes countries in south
America, countries in Africa,
Indonesia, we need to make sure
that these countries don't make
the same mistake that we made,
massive deforestation.
And the development of fossil
fuel energy infrastructure.
We got to make sure they do not
make the mistakes we made,
because we cannot afford for
them to do that.
Or we will blow past those
targets we talk about for
keeping warming below
catastrophic levels.
And to do that, we have to
provide incentives and this has
been one of the problems in
recentop meetings.
The developing world feels like
the major industrial powers of
the world haven't provided the
resources they promised in the
form of leases, in the form of
grants and assistance to help
them leapfrog past this
industrial state, past this
fossil fuel stage, directly into
a clean energy economy that will
not take us further down this
path O carbon energy dependence
and catastrophic climate change.
Geoff: Michael man is the
director of the center for
science sustainability and the
media at the university of
Pennsylvania.
Thanks for your insights.
Good to see you.
>> You, too.