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Climate Scrubbing Crops

This news story includes the following topics:

·      Green House Gases

·      Biodiversity

·      Health

This is a fascinating news story from NBC News about research that the Salk Institute in San Diego, California, is doing to develop plants that will fight climate change.  The plants are normal food crop plants like canola, corn and rice.  The research is working on creating plants that will have a stronger and longer root stalk that will go deeper into the ground than normal plants.  Because the roots will be stronger and go deeper into the ground, the plants will have the following positive effects:

• The plants will pull more Carbon Dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere and store it into the ground.  This will reduce global warming as CO2 is one of the major greenhouse gasses contributing to global warming.

• The plants will be stronger and more resilient to climate change since their roots will go deeper into the ground. 

• The plants will even make the soil better because the roots will be so much longer.

The experts at the Salk Institute say that these new crops are being tested now and could be ready for planting on a full-scale basis in about five years.  That is good news.  However, there are some major concerns about on-going funding because the Salk Institute is in part funded by the United States Federal Government, and the Trump Administration is significantly cutting funding for many important research programs.  At this time, the funding situation for the Climate Scrubbing Crops research program is not clear. 

Here is a link to the story:  Climate Scrubbing Crops

News Story Source:  National Broadcasting Company.  The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is a major American commercial broadcast television and radio network.