The State of Earth’s Terrestrial Biosphere: How is it Responding
to Rising Atmospheric CO2 and Warmer Temperatures? One of the
potential consequences of the historical and ongoing rise in the
air’s CO2 content is global warming, which phenomenon has
further been postulated to produce all sorts of other
undesirable consequences. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, for example, contends that current
levels of temperature and changing precipitation patterns (which
they believe are mostly driven by the modern rise in atmospheric
CO2) are beginning to stress Earth’s natural and agro-ecosystems
now by reducing plant growth and development. And looking to the
future, they claim that unless drastic steps are taken to reduce
the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content (e.g., scaling back on
the use of fossil fuels that, when consumed, produce CO2), the
situation will only get worse – that crops will fail, food
shortages will become commonplace, and many species of plants
(and the animals that