{"id":537,"date":"2025-11-03T22:57:45","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T17:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/?p=537"},"modified":"2025-12-16T21:55:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T16:55:41","slug":"australias-rainforests-are-turning-against-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/?p=537","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s Rainforests Are Turning Against Us?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Australia\u2019s Rainforests Are Turning Against Us? New Study Raises Alarm<br>Imagine forests that used to fight carbon pollution now helping it spread. It sounds strange, but that might be what\u2019s happening in Australia. A recent scientific study has found that parts of Australia\u2019s tropical rainforests have shifted from being carbon \u201csinks\u201d to carbon \u201csources\u201d, in other words forests now emit more carbon than they absorb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"575\" src=\"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-1024x575.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-538\" srcset=\"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-1024x575.png 1024w, https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image-768x431.png 768w, https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/image.png 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What\u2019s a \u201ccarbon sink\u201d anyway?<br>A carbon sink is something that absorbs more carbon dioxide (CO\u2082) than it releases. Forests were usually considered as Earth\u2019s best carbon sinks, capturing CO\u2082 from the air as trees grow and store carbon in their wood and roots. This process helps slow down climate change. But new evidence shows that Australia\u2019s rainforests are losing that power.<br>How did this happen?<br>The study tracked nearly 50 years\u2019 worth of data across 20 rainforest sites, mostly in Queensland. And the results are terrifying, unfortunately, trees are dying faster than new ones can replace them. Their trunks and branches are now releasing more carbon through decay and decomposition than they\u2019re storing through growth.<br>This shift didn\u2019t take place overnight. It seems to have begun around 25 years ago, and it\u2019s likely fueled by rising temperatures, more severe droughts, and the increasing frequency of extreme weather events like cyclones.<br>Why does it matter globally?<br>If even the world\u2019s rainforests can\u2019t act as carbon sinks anymore, that\u2019s a huge red flag. Scientists warn this could mess up climate models that assume forests will always help absorb emissions. In short: we might be underestimating just how fast climate change could worsen.<br>Wake-up call time<br>For all of us, the news can feel distant and abstract. But what\u2019s going on in Australia is a warning for humanity &#8211; and it\u2019s already starting to show effects. If forests, our natural defense system against climate change, are weakening, then we can\u2019t just rely on them to \u201cfix\u201d the problem for us.<br>What we can do is push for action: better climate policies, stronger protection for ecosystems, and smarter land management. More importantly, we need to rethink how much we depend on nature to clean up our mess; we have to reduce emissions ourselves, we have to act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Australia\u2019s Rainforests Are Turning Against Us? New Study Raises AlarmImagine forests that used to fight carbon pollution now helping it spread. It sounds strange,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1244,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":539,"href":"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions\/539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teenvoice.kz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}