Why aren t plants black?

Why are plants green? Is there a reason plants evolved to be green, globally? What does it have to do with the color of the sunlight coming down through our atmosphere? If you liked this video check out these: Bandaids Glow when Opening?! | EVERYDAY MYSTERIES https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIILDg2d3Yk Why Hawaii s volcano is so UNUSUAL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0tnqPmwWvk http://physicsgirl.org/ http://twitter.com/thephysicsgirl http://facebook.com/thephysicsgirl http://instagram.com/thephysicsgirl Help us translate our videos! http://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?c=UC7DdEm33SyaTDtWYGO2CwdA&tab=2 Creator: Dianna Cowern Editor: Jabril Ashe Hamburger eater: Jabril Ashe Colorful Planet Artist: Ashley Warner Thanks to: Dan Walsh, Kyle Kitzmiller, Joe Hanson and Kyle Norby Sources: Black Nigrescens Plant: http://www.thedangergarden.com/2013/02/ophiopogon-planiscapus-nigrescens-my.html With permission from Loree Bohl, thedangergarden.com Green Nigrescens Plant: With permission from © Davis Landscape Architecture, London, UK http://www.davisla.com Solar spectrum adapted from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Spectrum.png Chlorophyll spectrum adapted from: http://www.austincc.edu/biocr/1406/labm/ex7/prelab_7_4.htm The Functional Significance of Black-Pigmented Leaves: Photosynthesis, Photoprotection and Productivity in Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3691134/ Functional evolution of photochemical energy transformations in oxygen-producing organisms http://www.publish.csiro.au/FP/pdf/FP09087 Evolutionary Competition Between Primitive Photosynthetic Systems: Existence of an early purple Earth? http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AAS...209.0605S A Compilation of Selected Data on Solar Radiation at Sea Level http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/646355.pdf Green Light Drives CO2 Fixation Deep Within Leaves http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/10/1020.full.pdf+html Green Light Drives Leaf Photosynthesis More Efficiently than Red Light in Strong White Light: Revisiting the Enigmatic Question of Why Leaves are Green http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/4/684.full.pdf+html http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/green_light_is_it_important_for_plant_growth https://www.researchgate.net/publication/40900745_Cost_and_color_of_photosynthesis http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-arplant-042110-103811 The sensitivity of the human eye to different colors https://www.ecse.rpi.edu/~schubert/Light-Emitting-Diodes-dot-org/Sample-Chapter.pdf Music: APM