Be careful where you lie down, though, as biologists are once again in the news to warn us of the dangers of poison ivy. But this ain't your granddaddy's poison ivy. Literally. Thanks to climate change, poison ivy has become the poster girl of (post)apocalyptic prosperity, having doubled in size since the 1950s. And much like the world's shittiest Pokemon, Dr. Jacqueline Mohan of the University of Georgia warns, this poison ivy has also evolved to be "significantly more poisonous."
While most effects of climate change are disastrous to the environment, the increase of CO2 saturation helps them grow. And while their biggest CO2 meal since the Carboniferous Period is causing rapid growth in all plants (at least the ones surviving the torrents of wildfires and floods) none are thriving quite like poison ivy. Over the past decades, the weed has been given a CO2 boost of 149%, making them “bigger, stronger, and faster growing.”
At this rate, poison ivy will become not just a threat to nature lovers but to nature itself, as these Godzilla weeds start trampling all over less adaptable plant life. So the next time some climate change denier starts their bullshit about nature finding a way to cope, feel free to use that as an invitation to rub a gloved handful of super poison ivy into their dumb faces.