HomePortfolioEnergy & Environment The climate policy actually adding millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere
The climate policy actually adding millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere
By
Lisa Song
Wednesday July 14, 2021
When people write carbon offset rules, they always ignore the fact that there are 1,000 smart people next door that will try to game them. (ead72/Adobe)
Along the coast of Northern California near the Oregon border, the cool, moist air off the Pacific sustains a strip of temperate rainforests. Soaring redwoods and Douglas firs dominate these thick, wet woodlands, creating a canopy hundreds of feet high.
But if you travel inland the mix of trees gradually shifts.
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In Black Rock Forest, just north of New York City, Angie Patterson aims a shotgun at a northern red oak tree. Patterson is a plant ecophysiologist, and the leaves that she’s shooting out of the canopy will give her data to understand how and why trees migrate.
Trees have been on the move since at least the last ice age. As their native habitats become inhospitable, tree ranges shift, slowly, to areas they can thrive. But climate change is disrupting the process, scientists say. As of 2019, the IUCN Red List categorized more than 20,000 tree species as threatened, and upward of 1,400 as critically endangered.
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The Massachusetts Audubon Society has long managed its land in western Massachusetts as crucial wildlife habitat. Nature lovers flock to these forests to enjoy bird-watching and quiet hikes, with the occasional bobcat or moose sighting.
But in 2015, the conservation nonprofit presented California’s top climate regulator with a startling scenario: It could heavily log 9,700 acres of its preserved forests over the next few years.
The group raised the possibility of chopping down hundreds of thousands of trees as part of its application to take part in California’s forest offset program.
The state’s Air Resources Board established the system to harness the ability of trees to absorb and store carbon to help the state meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals.