Page 51 - IJES Special Issues for AIEC2016

International Journal of Environment and Sustainability, 2016, 5(1): 35-45 41

"having more carbon taken up by plants would
slow down climate change, but there are many
other processes which lay in between this work
and the ultimate capacity of terrestrial
ecosystems to remove carbon dioxide and store
it for long enough to make a difference to
atmospheric CO2 trends."

Figure 9: Teaching block at University of Surrey
(green wall)

Figure 8: Leaves absorb significantly more CO2 Figure 10: Green infrastructure layout in part
than climate models have estimated (McGarth, of the University of Surrey

2014) Figure 11: View between the Lecture Theatre,
BB Block, and the Library at University of
Idso et al. (1995) measured the net photo- Surrey
synthetic rates of leaves in Phoenix, Arizona and
found that leaves on CO2 enriched trees
continued to have positive photosynthetic rates
up to 54oC leaf temperature. This meant that an
extra 300 ppm of CO2 to which the CO2 enriched
trees were exposed allowed photosynthesis to
rise by an additional 7oC.

According to carboschools (2009), 90% of the
world’s photosynthesis is carried out by
phytoplankton in the ocean. These organisms
do indeed play a major role in removing CO2
from the atmosphere and the water body.
Carvajal, M posited that we depend on plants to
counteract the effects of global warming.
Therefore, the solution to climate change
necessarily depends on conserving as much
crop land as possible.

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