In order to understand the Earth's resilience, researchers from ETH Zurich are modeling climate changes from times long past. And they show that plants are not just victims of circumstance, but have helped shape Earth's climate. Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, the Earth experienced a series of climate changes that shaped the planet as we know it today. Past changes in CO levels ₂ and temperatures can help us understand the planet's response to global warming today. (By Andrew Curry, ETH Zurich, more at phys.org)