Humans and animals produce carbon dioxide; plants and trees absorb it. Climate change is the result of the fact that we have disturbed that delicate balance with an explosive growth in the use of fossil fuels. For decades, we’ve been pumping billions of tons of harmful greenhouse gases into the air, and plants have not been able to keep up. In fact, only some 45 percent of the carbon dioxide we emit, is absorbed back into the biosphere by the world’s vegetation and oceans. However, climate scientists are now discovering something surprising. Between 2002 and 2014, plants appeared to have upped their game, pulling more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere than in previous decades. It seems that plants are absorbing some 20 percent more than according to historical trends.
Plants to the rescue, absorbing more CO2 in response to climate change
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