The Amazon Rainforest Could Die in Your Lifetime — Here's Why

Climate change, fires and deforestation create a perfect storm that will destroy the Amazon in about 40 years.

By Anna Funk
Mar 5, 2021 8:00 PM
shutterstock 1583883709
The Curuaés River passing through Menkragnoti Indigenous Land in the Amazon Rainforest in the Brazilian state of Pará. (Credit: marcio isensee/Shutterstock)

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Deforestation in the Amazon has long been the poster child of man-made environmental destruction. But recent trends reveal that the changing climate will likely come for this beloved rainforest long before the last tree is cut down. One researcher has even put a date on his prediction for the Amazon’s impending death: 2064. That’s the year the Amazon rainforest will be completely wiped out.

Dramatic? Yes. “I’m a doom-sayer,” admits Robert Walker, a quantitative geographer at the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies, who came up with the 2064 prediction. “I don’t want to be Chicken Little, telling you that the sky is falling, but the numbers speak for themselves,” he says.

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