While federal efforts in the U.S. to reduce the impacts of climate change have largely shifted to other priorities, there is one global silver lining: nature.
It turns out that the Earth is naturally climate resilient, according to Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.
“Fifty percent of the carbon dioxide from the greenhouse gases we add is not in the atmosphere, trapping heat,” he told NPR. “It’s actually stored, half of it in the ocean and half of it on land. So a healthy planet has this extraordinary biogeophysical capacity to buffer and dampen, basically cool the planet.”
The problem is that our planet, and its natural carbon sinks, are already showing signs of distress. We have not yet reached a tipping point, but alarm bells are going off.
“Forest systems are getting weaker and no longer able to take up as much carbon. The ocean is warming faster than we had expected,” he said. “Ice is melting faster than we had expected. This is a stress response of a planet that is trying to do everything it can to buffer and dampen change.”
The data is stark:
● Between 2023 and 2024, tree cover loss in the Amazon biome spiked by 110%, reaching its highest level since 2016.
● Fires that burned between March 2024 and February 2025 released more than 8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, roughly 10% above the long-term average.
● The ocean has absorbed about 90% of the excess heat caused by global warming, pushing ocean temperatures to their highest levels recorded since 1955, when modern recordkeeping for total ocean heat content began.
Nature can be healing, but it is also being threatened by industry and humans. Trees store carbon, but that carbon returns to the atmosphere when the trees are cut down or burned. As oceans heat up, their capacity to absorb carbon can also weaken.
But there have been some positive signs. Fires are down significantly in Africa and Asia, thanks to increased fire management and agricultural practices that have led to major reductions in global carbon emissions. This year’s carbon emissions from burning are the lowest since satellites first measured nearly 25 years ago, according to data from Copernicus.
Communities are also recognizing the need to rewild spaces, from replanting forests and restoring estuaries to removing dams to connect rivers.
And according to Rockström, “The window is still open to avoid the most catastrophic outcomes” of climate change. To do that, we have to collectively face the climate reality we are living in and demand action, he said. We cannot continue treating climate change as tomorrow’s problem.
The Earth is fighting to keep us cool. It is absorbing our carbon, storing our heat, and cushioning the damage we continue to inflict on it. It is strained, but it has not given up. Neither can we. Because what is resilience, if not the ability to keep fighting to bounce back, over and over again?