Shocking News: Carbon Dioxide Is Good For Plants!

In a startling development, scientists have discovered that plants use CO2, and that as concentrations of this gas increase, plants use more of it and actually thrive. While more study is obviously needed, an increase in the amount of plant material, such as human food, as a result of increased levels of CO2 might have salutary effects on problems such as…oh….I’m just spit-balling here….global undernutrition and malnutrition.

In related news, chemists are excited by the novel concept that concentration of reactants may have some effect on the rate of reaction. And biologists are excited by the possibility that as CO2 concentration increases, photosynthesizing organisms are favored and consume more CO2, thus creating something they are calling a feedback mechanism, which would control the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

FYI: The enzyme that fixes CO2 is called Ribulose 1,5-Bisphosphate Carboxylase, and comprises “16% of the chloroplast protein and is believed to be the single most abundant protein on earth.”*

*Molecular Cell Biology; Darnell, Lodish, Baltimore. 1986, page 903.

 

2 comments to “Shocking News: Carbon Dioxide Is Good For Plants!”

Comments are closed.