Should We Brush Aside Worries About Amazon Rainforest Fires?

In recent weeks, I have noticed a flurry of articles about the Amazon rainforest. The cluster of wildfires were worrisome enough that the G-7 countries offered Brazil $22 million to fight the fires, an offer that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro summarily rejected. When environmentalists frame it in terms of the Amazon being the planet's lungs, it is bound to turn some heads. What I am curious about is the context of these fires and the extent to which we should worry.

Is the Amazon Rainforest Earth's Lungs?
In short, not really. Yes, the Amazon produces a significant amount of oxygen. The reality is that a majority of the oxygen that the Amazon produces is also consumed by the Amazon vis-à-vis respiration, whether it is wildlife or microorganisms that decompose dead leaves, twigs, or other materials. When this processing is factored in, net oxygen production is near net zero. When considering breathable oxygen, oceans are responsible for about 50-85 percent of the world's breathable oxygen. In short, the entire Amazon rainforest could be destroyed, G-d forbid, and we could still breathe. National Geographic recently released an article explaining in detail why this "Amazon's are the Earth's lungs" claim is a myth.

Historical Context of Amazon Rainforest Fires
Listening to the media, I would have thought that these fires were at an unprecedented level. Let us take a look at the data from Brazil's Instituto de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE), which is Brazil's space research agency.

Source: FEE (dated September 5)

I do notice that we are not complete with the 2019 calendar year, and fires are already higher than 2018. However, I notice two other things. One, Amazon rainforest fires are not new. Two, they are still lower than they were in the early- and mid-2000s. While useful, these data have limits because they say nothing about the size of the data (i.e., unlike Brazil, the U.S. tracks the size of the fires).

Shouldn't We Still Worry? 
Even if the fires are not anything new or if the levels are not unprecedented, we should still worry, argue environmentalists. After all, these fires are bound to have detrimental effects on the biodiversity of the region. The New York Times and Smithsonian Magazine confirm most of the fires are being burned on agricultural land where the forest has already been cleared.

This is not to say that there are no issues whatsoever. One has to be concerned with increased carbon monoxide emissions and how that will most immediately affect the indigenous tribes living in the Amazon.

Second, there is concern that we will reach a tipping point (called a dieback scenario) if we reach 20-25 percent deforestation levels (Lovejoy and Nobre, 2018). We are currently at 17 percent, according to the World Wildlife Fund. While deforestation rates have slightly increased under Bolsonaro, those rates are much higher than they were in the early- and mid-2000s. There was actually a 70 percent decline in deforestation between 2004 and 2012 (Nepstad et al., 2014).

Source: Ministério do Meio Ambiente

There is also expressed concern about how deregulation has contributed to the uptick. I would contend that Brazil being a developing country has something to do with it. Research suggests that there is a U-shaped relationship between environmental degradation and economic growth (Chiu, 2012). The process to get a permit for scheduled clears and burns is onerous enough that Brazilians are resorting to illegal burns, which like so much in the underground market, is more problematic. As an economist from University of Colorado hypothesizes, the economic development that results in rule of law and greater voice translates into better forest management (Barbier, 2019). This better forest management, of course, assumes that Brazil can get past crony capitalism and become a developed nation.

When I take a look at this, I do not this that it is the dire situation that many environmentalists are depicting. I also do not this that the situation is free of concern. Ultimately, it is something we should see an eye on while making sure that the Amazon tree canopy cover is growing, much like we see happening on the global level (Song et al., 2019). Fortunately, there are ways to ameliorate the situation (Lapola et al., 2018). Ultimately, this is another example of how we should let facts inform our emotions, and not the other way around.