The Importance Of The Plant Kingdom

The Carbon Cycle is a process necessary to all life forms as carbon is used for photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and is found in all living organisms. This process occurs naturally from cellular respiration, decomposition, and volcanic eruptions. However from burning fossil fuels and cutting down trees at a rapid pace carbon dioxide is being released into the atmosphere at an artificial rate. The overabundance of atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing for global warming. This global warming is causing extreme havoc to the Earth and all of its life forms. However this damage, although cannot be reversed, can be changed for the better.

Photosynthesis is essential for a plant to survive. In order to perform photosynthesis, carbon dioxide is needed and is the most important component in the creation of matter. There are two other factors that go into photosynthesis, which are solar energy and water. Both are equally important in order to perform photosynthesis, but they don’t create the majority of the matter in a plant. The carbon dioxide is taken from the atmosphere which has a high concentration of carbon. “During the spring when plants start growing again, concentration drops” (Riebeeck p.5). Plants absorb the carbon dioxide and keep it, in order to grow. Once the carbon dioxide is fixated, glucose is produced and used in the process of cellular respiration.

In the novel, The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan tells the intriguing story of how plants are domesticated from the perspective of the plant with regards to four specific plants.. The four plants he chose for discussion are the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. As he discusses the domestication of these plants, his overall focus is the desire that each of these plants have to us as humans. Pollan has written books and magazine articles among other pieces of literature that discuss the relationship between plants and humans. Throughout this informational text, Pollan tries to keep the perspective from the “plant’s-eye view of the world,” but he often slips into Pollan’s eye view of the world. As he talks about experiences that he has had with each of these plants and gives a little bit of their history, it was often hard to stay focused on the topic that he was trying to convey. However, I found that the perspectives that Pollan brings up are interesting to think about. The Botany of Desire was an interesting journal type informational novel that didn’t quite live up to my expectations of what it could have been.

     Since the beginning of the human race mankind has depended on the natural resources in their environment for survival. They utilized the available flora to nourish their body, heal their wounds, comfort their ailments and to create products to ease their daily lives. Many of the same plants utilized thousands of years ago by the indigenous people have been integrated into modern day medicines. The scientific interest and knowledge of plants for nourishment, healing, and practical uses is called ethnobotany.

Plants and animals are very important to human life. Plants and animals developed natural forms

Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s View of the World, addresses four major plant groups that have both changed for human needs and simultaneously changed human’s needs. While most gardeners, genetic engineers and other plant related professionals have long-believed that plants have evolved based on what we want or need to survive and in other words what we have “domesticated”, Pollan appeals to the plant’s view. Plants’ survival has been solely based on what humans desire both depending on their visual and stimulatory appeal along with their appeal to an appetite. Conversely, plants have used humans as a strategy for “getting us to move and think for them (page xx)”. Many plants have successfully maneuvered humans for

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollen uses examples of four plants including the apple ,tulip, marijuana, and the potato, to describe evolution and how mankind works to help plants reproduce. We are a slave to things of sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control. These four things are described by the different plant chapters in the book. We as people are driven to these kind of things because of the product we get, we subconsciously are working to make these plants more fit and therefore helping in their reproduction and evolution. With each plant chapter Pollen goes into depth about its contribution to the world and history behind the plant within human evolution. By using the examples he provides in the book helps demonstrate the ideas of how these plants contribute to the human body systems, evolution and ecology. To further explain these topics I chose to explore the apple, tulip and cannabis plants.

Photosynthesis occurs in all green plants and is the beginning of nearly all food chains therefore a source of life to all living organisms. It is the process where plants transform light energy from the sun into chemical energy. By using light energy trapped by chlorophyll (light absorbing pigment), plants combine carbon dioxide and water to form glucose and oxygen.

Every time we burn fossil fuels such as gas, coal or oil, carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. Naturally, carbon dioxide (CO2) is absorbed by plants and trees and exceeded as oxygen. However, humans are burning fuels quicker than the plants and trees are able to soak them up.

    Plants have an important role in nearly every ecosystem. They provide food and shelter for animals, and insects, and absorb CO2 and produce O2 through photosynthesis. However invasive plants are affecting many ecosystems by changing many aspects of soil chemistry and are outcompeting native plants. Not all introduced exotic plants are invasive, an invasive plant is an exotic plant that has the ability to spread quickly and aggressively in a new range that it does not naturally occur in. Invasive species in new habitats are sometimes able to outcompete native plants because the diseases, animals, and insects that previously reduced growth in its native range are no longer close by. Invasive plants affect habitats and decrease biodiversity.

In addition, human activities like deforestation may increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is because forests help in carbon sequestration, which reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the air. It follows then that clearing such tress will increase the amount of carbon dioxide since carbon sequestration will not occur (3). The man-made theory of climate change also explains that when these harmful gasses reach the atmosphere, they form a blanket, which traps heat in the atmosphere. This trapping of in the atmosphere is the phenomenon that causes the planet to get warmer, hence the term global warming (Sharma, 4).

Photosynthesis is the process where green plants use sunlight to produce water and carbon dioxide as the food and generates oxygen as a product.

In addition, biodiversity will be crucial for humanities continued survival in the case of climate change or widespread crop failures. The majority of people on earth are reliant on four crops for subsistence; wheat, rice, corn, and millet. (11) These crops are threatened by climate change and the spread of disease facilitated by modern transportation. If humanity is to survive such an eventuality it must be ready to draw upon the earth’s biodiversity for replacements. And while there are approximately 50 thousand plant species that could offer alternatives, this bank of resources is quickly thinning as various ecosystems are being destroyed. (11)

Oxygen is a part of the air and it is responsible for aerobic respiration in humans, animals and some microorganisms to produce energy and to function. Air also contains carbon dioxide, and it is a crucial part of photosynthesis in primary producers, such as plants, for the production of chemical energy (Reference, 2017).

Other then being used for consumption, plants also provide shelter from the environment. Trees provide shade, which creates a cooler temperature that helps prevent dehydration. They also provide fruit and shelter for animals for human consumption. Trees are also cut up into wood for building houses and making tools needed for hunting and protection from predators. Humans have an advantage over animals because of our greater intelligence that permitted the discovery of tools. Without