Landsat satellite images of the region, taken between 1985 and 2017, show the constant reduction of the Amazon rainforest due to deforestation. Now, the images also reveal another major impact on the region – the Amazon is gradually drying up. In three decades, an average of 350 km² of water surface area has been lost per year.
“The wild sound of the chainsaw never ceases wherever trees are still found growing,” wrote J.R.R. Tolkien, the philologist and author of “The Lord of the Rings,” in 1972. When he classifies machines that burn fossil fuels as “infernal combustion engines‘ (a pun on ’internal”), the creator of the hobbits is a prophetic voice! The possibility that this wild sound will carry us closer to Hell in the next 30 years is increasingly likely.
