![](\"http:\/\/www.triplepundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/2007-06-14carbontrading.gif\")
<\/a>\nRich McKay wrote for the ajc,\n<\/a>\nRich McKay wrote for the ajc,\n\nCarbon limits a boon for traders:\nProposed emissions standards may galvanize business in Georgia<\/a>.\n\nThe carbon-emitting companies pay the farmers to not cut down the trees\nor to plant new trees. The idea is that the trees, which gobble up\ncarbon, will store up the carbon from the atmosphere and offset what\nthe smokestacks spew.\n<\/blockquote>\n\nBlake Sullivan, of the Macon-based\n\nCarbon Tree Bank,<\/a>\nhas 26,000 acres\nof forest in the state under contract for carbon banking.\n\n“Georgia has an abundance of forests right here, and trees are like the\nlungs of the Earth,” he said. “They inhale carbon and exhale oxygen. We\ncan be part of the solution right here in our own backyard.”\n<\/blockquote>\nWhy is this suddenly a business?\n\n\n
\nThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is gearing up to regulate how\nmuch carbon both fossil-fuel burning power plants and oil refineries\ncan pump into the atmosphere.\n\nProposed limits are expected to be made public later in 2011 and could\nbecome law in 2012.\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nI am a pine tree farmer, so naturally I’m interested in this subject.\nGeorgia has more forests than almost any other state,\nwhich are the base for one of Georgia’s biggest industries, so this is a\nbig money subject for the whole state.\nA subject on which Georgia could lead the nation.\nEspecially considering the recent study that shows\n\nGeorgia forests worth more standing than incinerated<\/a>.\n
\nThere is a downside:\n
\nColleen Kiernan, the director of the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club\nin Atlanta, said that while her group is all about saving trees, they\naren\u2019t the cure-all for the environment.\n\n“Holding onto trees is just a Band-Aid on the bigger problem,”\nKiernan said. “We need to stop burning fossil fuels.”\n<\/blockquote>\nThat’s true.\nBut we also need to stop deforestation and the erosion, flooding,\nand\n\nthe lowered water tables it causes.<\/a>\nThat plus if carbon trading were implemented so as to favor\nplanting real forests such as longleaf pines with native warm season\ngrasses as in the existing Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)\ninstead of monuculture slash pine plantations with no undergrowth,\nthat could lead to increased species diversity\nand more jobs through hunting, fishing, ecotourism, etc.\nThe jobs are in the trees: reforestation.<\/a>\n
\nThe AJC doesn’t quite get the reason for carbon trading right:\n
\nCarbon emissions, gases produced by burning wood and fossil fuels such\nas coal and oil, are believed by many scientists to trap heat in the\nEarth\u2019s atmosphere and act like a greenhouse, warming up the planet.\n<\/blockquote>\nThis isn’t a matter of belief.\nIt’s a matter of decades of research by scientists all over the world,\nreviewed by other scientists, and published in peer-reviewed journals.\nNo scientific professional society in the world any longer doubts\nthe reality of climate change.\nIn the U.S. an oil-industry disinformation campaign does continue,\nleading to for example the fifth U.S. or British board of inquiry\ninto any wrongdoing in climate science,\nthis one by the U.S. Commerce Department Inspector General’s office,\nwhich reported back last month\n\nScientists Are Cleared of Misuse of Data<\/a>.\nLet’s not let a few oil-funded politicians’ “beliefs” get in the way\nof the science, which shows that climate change is real and we need\nto do something about it.\nLet’s get on with real issues, such as whether and how much carbon trading\nis a good idea, and how to implement it and other means, such as\nsolar, wind, wave, tide, efficiency, and conservation.\n\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rich McKay wrote for the ajc, Carbon limits a boon for traders: Proposed emissions standards may galvanize business in Georgia. The carbon-emitting companies pay the farmers to not cut down the trees or to plant new trees. The idea is that the trees, which gobble up carbon, will store up the carbon from the atmosphere […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[47,141,14,16,740,2,23,289,55],"tags":[4822,8719,8745,8704,8801,8701,8758],"class_list":["post-2348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-co2","category-economy","category-environment","category-forestry","category-government","category-renewable-energy","category-science","category-water","tag-carbon-trading","tag-climate-change","tag-co2","tag-economy","tag-forestry","tag-georgia","tag-science"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-BS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}