We need a new deal with the plant world.
New plant observation tools are revolutionizing our perception (accelerated video, ability to observe root networks …). Plants smell, see, hear. They are incredibly mobile, using extremely elaborate and effective tactics of defence and attack. They are constantly adapting to change. They live in networks and communicate with each other, chemically, electrically or via other species. The root network is surprisingly dense and vivacious. Some compare it to the Internet.
The dependence of humans and animals on the plant world is total.
Without plants, man’s ability to survive would last no more than a month. The plant world provides our oxygen, our energy (oil, coal), our building materials, our books, our medicines and of course our food and that of the animals we eat.
However, humans have the power to destroy, on a large scale, biodiversity. Primary forests are one of the most egregious examples.
Investment and public policy ignore the potential of plant intelligence.
In the face of climate threats, overpopulation and pollution, help from the plant world is essential. For example, plants are carbon traps and depolluting agents. These are major tools for humans, animals, insects and micro-organisms.
Plants make up more than 95% of the earth’s biomass. That is an enormous potential of intelligence for us to understand and to use. Some kind of “a new conquest of the West”.