Showing results for "Planets" in Botany & Plants

The most recent research tells us that seaweed is one possible solution for our future on the planet. It could feed human beings, reduce plastic pollution, absorb enough carbon to cool the atmosphere, reconstruct generative ecosystems, treat certain illnesses that are incurable today, replace land livestock farming that exhausts the environment, and give jobs to coastal populations. The seaweed revolution is a hope for tomorrow!

Over seven billion people depend on plants for healthy, productive, secure lives, but few of us stop to consider the origin of the plant kingdom that turned the world green and made our lives possible. And as the human population continues to escalate, our survival depends on how we treat the plant kingdom and the soils that sustain it. Understanding the evolutionary history of our land floras, the story of how plant life emerged from water and conquered the continents to dominate the planet, is fundamental to our own existence.

When most people hear the word “fungi,” they think of mushrooms — the whimsical toadstools that pop up after rain, the champignons in our kitchens, or the button mushrooms scattered on a pizza. But mushrooms are only the tip of the iceberg. The true world of fungi is vast, hidden, and endlessly fascinating. These organisms represent one of life’s great kingdoms, existing alongside plants and animals yet fundamentally different from both.

The carbon dioxide that industrial civilization spews into the atmosphere has dramatic consequences for life on Earth that extend beyond climate change. CO2 levels directly affect plant growth, in turn affecting any kind of life that depends on plants—in other words, everything.