Posthuman Blues

Amazon rainforest 'could become a desert'

The vast Amazon rainforest is on the brink of being turned into desert, with catastrophic consequences for the world's climate, alarming research suggests. And the process, which would be irreversible, could begin as early as next year.

Two words spring to mind: "Oh, fuck."

The End of Man? (Whitley Strieber)

As the summer of 2006 rages on, with heatwaves stretching from the American Pacific coast all the way across the North Atlantic to Europe and virtually around the world, we now discover that the great Amazonian rain forest has perhaps a year to live.

If there is no rain in the Amazon basin soon, and that forest is destroyed, mankind is likely to die with it. This is because the Amazonian forest is, in effect, the heart of the world's ecosystem. It is a vast, unimaginably important carbon dioxide sink and oxygen producer. Without it, the planet's climate will quickly become untenable for human life.

We are well on our way to another large-animal extinction, and we will be among the large animals who go.

I don't think Whitley is the sage he seems to think he is. Nonetheless, he's written some compelling and prescient material on the subject of climate change (perhaps most importantly, the phenomenally apocalyptic "Nature's End," published in 1985).

Could the Amazon -- our world's lungs -- go up in flames within the next several years? I see no reason why not.

Unlike Strieber, I don't think we'd all die as a result.

Just most of us.