[New York] Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could give birth to thick forests, but with more toxic forms of poisonous ivy and other noxious vines, researchers say. Higher carbon dioxide levels expected in the next 50 years could breed ivies that grow twice as fast, and, unexpectedly, manufacture a nastier form of poison, researchers in the United States have shown. In the study, Nature says Mohan and her co-workers pumped extra carbon dioxide over three large circular plots of North Carolina pine forest. For six years, the plants inside were exposed to an extra 200 parts per million of the gas over today’s atmospheric concentration of about 380 parts per million, roughly what we might expect from pollution by the middle of this century.

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