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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		How carbon-hungry plants help fight climate change
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:02
	Publish Date:		2016-12-03 18:00:00
	Description:		Over the past few decades, the amount of carbon dioxide that trees and plants have been grabbing from the atmosphere has increased. Trevor Keenan, a research scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, found that plants have been “inhaling” more carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. But they did not "exhale" more CO2 into the atmosphere through respiration. "So this is called the CO2 fertilization effect - a widely known effect of how CO2 affects plants. During the last few decades, the concentration of the CO2 in the atmosphere continue to go up and this means plants have more CO2 to use.” This sounds like good news since less carbon dioxide is accumulated in the atmosphere, but Keenan says the threat of global warming is still there. "And so even though the plants are helping us out, whether they will continue doing it is a big question. CO2 in the atmosphere is still going up and so climate change is getting more and more likely to be more extreme." In the meantime, this research underscores the importance of protecting vital ecosystems.
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