Effect Of Increased Carbon Dioxide on Plants

Climate change has been the song on almost everyone's lips and we stand with the fact that it is harmful to the environment but if the majority of the greenhouse gas we emit is carbon dioxide, could we say that it is straightforward bad for plants being that they need carbon dioxide to live?

Like I said, it isn't 1 + 1 = 2 in the case of plants. Rise in CO₂ levels can be good for a lot of plants because plants uses it for photosynthesis which would mean faster growth with increased CO₂ levels but in general, faster growth for plants can have unpredictable effects which can be seen in the compounds the plants produces which could be harmful or useful.

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I do not want to use the world pre-industrial times but I do not think I have much choice since the bulk of our problem arose from that moment but normally, CO₂ majes of 0.04% of our atmosphere but its amount increased since industrial revolution. Before industrial revolution, CO₂ in the atmosphere was about 280 parts per million but has increased up to 420ppm in recent times which is almost double the amount it was before the industrial revolution.

Talking about increased CO₂ having effects on the products plant produce has been seen in studies from researchers. They have seen that some vegetables become less nutritious when there is an increase in CO₂level. Although studies and researches are still done to understand why this happens and there is no hypothesis to explain what could happen, but we see that the result isn't good for us and it can have terrible repercussions for our health especially in countries where access to nutritional food is a problem.

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For our smoker friends, scientists also saw that tobacco produced less nicotine when CO₂ levels were high but it isn't like all plants keep reducing the value of what they produce, the effect of increased CO₂ on plants have varying effect in different species. In Artemisia Annua (Sweet Wormwood), the active ingredient artemisinin which is a treatment for malaria is increased with increased CO₂ level. Also, wild poppy produces more Opium related chemicals in the presence of increased CO₂ level.

We can all see that the effect of increased CO₂ on plant can have varying effects and this can be either good or bad but we have to look into what will be beneficial to us and reduce what will be detrimental to us but we have seen that higher CO₂ levels can make plants more dangerous to our health.

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Parthenium hysterophorus is a plant that can be harmful to the environment becoming an invasive plant and also harmful to humans because it produces Parthenin which kills the plants close to it that could be competing with it. The toxin can also causes asthma and skin irritation in humans. Researchers notice that increase in CO₂ can increase the rate at which the invasive plant produces parthenin. Although the plant toxin is harmful to us, this plant actually produces the toxin to be able to beat competition and protect itself against predation.

The studies I listed above are the ones I could find but I am sure that there will be a lot of other plants that are already changing and adapting to increased level of CO₂ and as such they are already responding to it in ways that could either be helpful or harmful to us. We need to look into the issue of climate change beyond the ozone layer, and heat waves, its effect might increase beyond what we think but the earlier we are able to look into lasting solutions, the better.

^Reference

^{https://elifesciences.org/articles/3233
https://www.nasa.gov/earth-and-climate/nasa-at-your-table-climate-change-and-its-environmental-impacts-on-crop-growth/
https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/effects-of-rising-atmospheric-concentrations-of-carbon-13254108/
https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/60100500/csr/ResearchPubs/prior/prior_11a.pdf
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/climate/2015-paris-climate-talks/what-climate-change-looks-like-poison-ivy
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1025
https://eos.org/articles/famine-weed-becomes-more-toxic-invasive-in-carbon-rich-atmosphere
https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/1911/chapter/8
https://blog.invasive-species.org/2020/10/28/establishing-parthenium-leaf-beetle-zygogramma-bicolorata-at-new-sites-in-pakistan/}