Future: Plants in a changing world

摘要

Since oxygenic photosynthesis evolved some 2.8 billion years ago, the proportion of the atmosphere that is made up of CO2 has dropped from about 20 per cent to just 0.04 per cent. The levels started to rise again at the start of the industrial revolution, and continue to go up. This is happening because the capacity of photosynthesis to soak upthehuge volumes of gas we release by burning fossil fuels has been exceeded.