118 / SEEDWORLD.COM DECEMBER 2018 WHERE ON THE WEB Watch Kurtis Baute in Action! Visit his YouTube Channel at youtube.com/user/ScopeofScience and follow him on Twitter @kurtisbaute “Eat less meat, it is horribly inefficient and uses tons of fossil fuels. Maybe try giving it up for #MeatlessMonday or go further than that.” “Drive less. Cut your commute time. Bike, carpool, take tran- sit, work from home. Your car is suffocating and cooking you and I both. Besides, you’ve got better things to do than sit in traffic.” “Start a conversation about this. Let’s be real and encourage each other to do better.” SW He awakes to an overcast day, meaning his 200 plants can’t produce enough oxygen to offset rising CO2 levels, and Baute leaves his jar after 14 hours after CO2 levels rise too high to be safe. “Doing this project has completely changed my relationship with air and with sunlight and with plants because I know CO2 levels in here have just risen constantly, and I’ve just been waiting for the sun to come out so my plants could photosynthesize and soak up the carbon dioxide I’m breathing and give me fresh wonderful oxygen. Air is this really weird thing because it is very literally our life force. It is what allows us to make energy and to live and yet we can’t see it.” 4. Despite the experiment only lasting 19 percent as long he he’d aimed for before becoming too dangerous, Baute says he came away with some important insights into what people can do to reduce their carbon footprint. He tweets: “You can make a real difference here. Right now. Like today. And it isn’t even hard…” 5. WHY HE CHOSE THE PLANTS HE DID Kurtis Baute used corn, bean, squash and sunflower plants in his #KurtisInAJar experiment due to their efficient photosynthesis and nutrient utilization capabilities. He also included a potato plant since he’s a big fan of The Martian, and some trees as well.