Thanks for the thought-provoking article. I am a little confused about forestry, however. In the US, the largest owner of forest is the federal government. Out west, a major problem is that forests have too much litter and under-story, which has resulted in massive forest fires. I hope these facts don't contradict what is being proposed.

Second, I personally wouldn't support any international offset program. The "date palm for carbon credits" scam was and is that, just a scam and an ecological disaster at that. I want to fix up my forests and plains in the USA.

Third a regional approach is needed. Texas where I live is a perfect example. It is one of the larger CO2 polluters - indeed larger than many countries - but the Fed only owns a few percent of the land. So any improvement in forestry offsets in Texas would be complicated because nearly all the land (except for Crockett National Forest in East Texas) is privately owned.

I could go on about the Indian Nations and other facets that make a simple idea very complicated in practice. I'm not being negative, just trying to think it out. To me, the largest threat to the forests are the ever-creeping farms and suburban communities, a true failure of national policy.
-sam

Onward through the fog

I definately agree that we need to protect and restore our forests in the states.  But it would be foolish to ignore the forests of other countries, particularly the tropical forests, which contain vast quantities of carbon and shelter millions of species of life.

When we have multi-national corporations that operate and pollute all over the world, why should we not require them to clean up their acts all over the world?  Almost all the goods we buy come from other nations, most of the wood products we purchase come from other nations.  It makes sense to protect forests in other nations, rather than stripping its people of yet another natural resource, and to do so in a manner that does not deprive them of a source of income.

Yes, we have to be careful of scams, but that can be solved with transparancey (something all too lacking whenever you mention corporations and government).

My point is, we got into this mess by abusing the resources of nations around the world, and we aren't gonna get out of it by focusing on just our country.  We have to fix what we messed in other places.  And yes, we did mess it up... what nation on earth has consumed as much per capita as we have in the last fifty years?  It's our responsibility to clean up our mess.

The year 2050? Its hard to imagine there could be miraculous changes by the time natural resources, like forests, are sucked from existence. Legislation ought to be one to curb peoples instatiable urge to reproduce and a push towards alternative resources, preferably those that can be made out of "thin air". Gosh, I feel so grim...