The Amazon rainforest is reaching a critical “tipping point”, and that could have “profound” implications for the world’s climate and biodiversity. Scientists have examined month-to-month satellite images taken over the past 20 years, and they say that more than 75% of the South American rainforest is taking longer to recover from droughts, fires, and logging. That’s bad… Thanks to climate change, dry seasons in the Amazon basin have become longer and droughts have become more common. Deforestation is another factor, with areas closest to urban areas and farm land showing the most “resilience loss”. That could see the rainforest lose large parts of its forest canopy which would turn the ‘lungs of the world’ into a grassy savannah and release huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. “This is alarming,” said Professor Niklas Boers in the understatement of the year. The good news is that the tipping point hasn’t been reached yet, so scientists are calling for urgent action.