Harnessing plants to clear the air Row after row of plants are being tested to see how much carbon dioxide they can suck out of the air. Author: Neda Iranpour (Reporter) Updated: 6:35 PM PDT April 21, 2021 SAN DIEGO — The burning of fossil fuels sends carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and that is the leading cause of the warming of our planet. Plants help clear some of that carbon dioxide from the air. So what if scientists could harness those plants and have them clean the air even more? That’s what they’re doing at the Salk Institute and we have rare access into a greenhouse where this important research is happening.