Nature, 12 August 2024

‘Who will protect us from seeing the world’s largest rainforest burn?’ The mental exhaustion faced by climate scientists

To cope with the emotional toll of working in the field, researchers have developed strategies to help themselves and others.

“When I first found out the Amazon forest was becoming a source of carbon emissions a few years ago, I was devastated,” says Luciana Gatti, a climate scientist at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research in São José dos Campos. Because it has been depleted, the rainforest is not as efficient as a carbon sink as it used to be. Gatti watches the ongoing destruction of the forest and its impact on climate change with sadness and extreme worry. “It’s a hard scenario that makes me anguished, because the window for us to do something is closing,” she continues.

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