The Amazon rain forest is nearing a threshold which, once crossed, would see one of the world’s largest and richest ecosystems morph into arid savannah within half-a-century, scientists said Tuesday. Another major ecosystem, Caribbean coral reefs, could die off in only 15 years were it to pass its own point-of-no-return, the scientists reported in the journal Nature Communications. Each of these so-called “regime changes” would have dire consequences for humanity and other species with which we share habitat, they warned.

Amazon could be gone in 50 years as it crosses threshold. (2020, March 13). Manila Standard, p. B3.