Araucaria columnaris at Philippine Mountain
It really agitated me after hearing from the BBC documentary, Hot planet, that plants give off Carbon dioxide at night. It's not that I am unaware that plants give off Carbon dioxide too but it is just the way it was said that is worrying me. This is very misleading in my opinion. Anyway, here is the full phrase from the documentary.
"Trees absorb Carbon dioxide but they release it during the night and when they decompose."
I don't know if the producer behind this documentary had just taken for granted this very phrase but it is misleading in my opinion.
Through my years of studying biology, I have always bear in my mind that plants have always been the great changer of our atmosphere. The organisms which absorb the Carbon dioxide emitted by other organisms especially the animals. To me, the phrase sounded that the net total Carbon dioxide absorbed by plants and converted to other compounds is zero. This is like saying or at least some might interpret this, that plants do not change the level of Carbon dioxide in our atmosphere when the net total amount is considered.
I had researched a little bit about this topic and I found out that plants(including trees) in general do not give off more Carbon dioxide than absorbing them which means they have a large role in maintaining the level of Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Normally, plants do absorb more of these Gases but according to studies, plants do rarely produce more Carbon dioxide in certain circumstances like producing many flowers.
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