Plants are no longer absorbing carbon dioxide

Question

Honestly, this claim made me a little agitated and upset. It is very obviously false. This made it very interesting to read about, mostly because that's not how our world works. Photosynthesis will never stop because CO2 will never not be produced. If that were to happen then they would stop emitting oxygen and we wouldn't be able to breath. 

It was super interesting to dig a little deeper about this topic because there were many articles out there that vouched for this claim. It's also very scary to think how some people can be so ignorant to topics like this. Climate change is very real.

Don't get me wrong, climate change is heavily ruining our world, but I think CO2 absorption would be the least of our worries. When I think of climate change, I think of greenhouse gasses, polar bears losing their home, and how we are (corporations) choosing money over our world. I wouldn't have even thought about the CO2 levels, so it was interesting reading about it. I think more people need to be educated on this topic, plants don't just stop their basic nature.

Answer 1

 The claim that plants are no longer absorbing carbon is false. Where there is some evidence that ecosystems have become less efficient at digesting carbon, the statement that  they have stopped entirely is false. Plants intake carbon allowing them to grow and photosynthesize. While doing this the produce oxygen, a key element for us humans to breathe, and all living life to exist on earth. With the recent events of climate change and the rapid effects being seen. Plants are having to cycle through a lot more Carbon Dioxide. With a higher concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, plants have to adapt to absorb more carbon. This shows the opposite of the statement that plants have ceased absorption. However the rapid growth of climate change suggests that Plants may becoming less efficient at the production of oxygen. In an article posted by NASA, they state,  “While an abundance of CO2 won’t limit growth, a lack of water, nutrients, or sunlight – the other necessary components of photosynthesis — will. To determine why the CFE has been decreasing, the study team took the availability of these other elements into account.-‘According to our data, what appears to be happening is that there’s both a moisture limitation as well as a nutrient limitation coming into play”. Though there is research suggesting that plants are becoming less efficient there is another part to the picture. SciTechDaily says that plants are absorbing 31% more carbon dioxide then we had first thought. Around 40 years ago scientists had estimated that a total of 120 petagrams were being absorbed by plants. With a large group of scientists behind the study, Cornell University, and the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory found that plants may be absorbing 157 petagrams of CO2. Petagrams track the largest exchange of CO2 and oxygen, looking at the amount of CO2 relieved from the atmosphere. This results in photosynthesis in land allowing them to measure the “Terrestrial Gross Primary Production (GPP).” With much research constantly being done, and the climate changing greatly, it is hard to see whether plants are becoming more or less efficient at removing carbon from the earth. While its hard to find exactly how efficient they are, it is easy to see that if we keep letting the climate change in the way it is, there will not be enough plants to offset the amount of carbon us humans produce. Action is required so that our earth can become healthy again.

 

 

 

https://www.nasa.gov/science-research/earth-science/land-ecosystems-are-becoming-less-efficient-at-absorbing-co2/\

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-were-wrong-plants-absorb-31-more-co2-than-previously-thought/

Answer 2

I strongly disagree with the fact that plants are no longer absorb carbon dioxide. If plants stopped absorbing carbon dioxide, we would stop living quickly due to increased releases into the atmosphere. According to https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/understanding-plants/how-plants-breathe, plants need to create photosynthesis in order to release oxygen for us to breathe. Plants do in fact still absorb carbon dioxide.