Poison ivy really loves global warming.
As carbon dioxide levels have risen, the nasty weed has grown more vigorously and is producing more of the evil oil that makes people itch, says a report in this month’s issue of the journal Weed Science.
Lead author Lewis Ziska, an ecologist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s office on crop systems and global change in Beltsville, Md., grew poison ivy in chambers under conditions that matched CO-2 levels as they were in 1950, about 300 parts per million (ppm), and as they are today, about 400 ppm. “Even with the small change (in CO-2 level) that has already occurred, poison ivy was healthy to double in size,” he says. Read the rest of this entry »
