You heard it here, you knew it to be the case, and yet, now it is in Nature..
However, disturbances that could result in losses of forest carbon stocks are poorly accounted for when estimating the potential role of forests in climate mitigation5,6,7. This makes it difficult to appropriately size ‘buffer pools’: a mechanism designed to compensate for unintended carbon losses in carbon crediting projects8,9. Here we use forest inventory, satellite data, disturbance modelling and machine learning to map reversal (carbon loss) risk in the contiguous United States (CONUS) from natural disturbance. Across CONUS forests, we show that climate change increases the 100-year risk of carbon losses from natural disturbance, particularly in California and the Intermountain West. The current buffer pool of the largest CONUS forest climate mitigation programme is likely too small by an average factor of 6.3, and this could range from 2.2- to 8.0-fold too small when considering uncertainties around future climate scenarios, disturbance severity and other carbon pools. We provide spatially explicit maps of the long-term risks to forest carbon losses from natural disturbances, which highlight that current methodologies used for constructing carbon offset buffer pools require revisions to succeed under climate change.
But maybe.. just maybe.. carbon offsets in dry forests don’t need revisions.. (more paperwork systems). Or maybe modelers could include fuel treatments and wildfire suppression..but really, why? No amount of modeling or paperwork can keep a tree from burning up or dying from the many insects and diseases that trees encounter. Th
From the Redmond Spokesman:
Warm Springs natural resources manager Austin Smith described what occurred as a “stand-replacement” fire, a high-intensity fire that kills the mature overstory trees in a forest, initiating a restart in the growth cycle.
By the time it was extinguished, the fire had scorched more than 200,000 acres on and around the Warm Springs Reservation.
“It was enough of the carbon project that burned up that it triggered conditions for the Tribes to exit out of that agreement,” Smith said in a recent interview.
Under the terms of the carbon contract, large-scale carbon loss made the project no longer feasible to maintain. After evaluating and measuring the burned acreage, the Tribes determined the land could no longer meet sequestration requirements for the market, Smith said.
The affected ground included “conditional use” forestland — areas the Tribes had opted not to log in favor of conservation and carbon revenue. Smith, who served on the Lionshead Fire as a resource adviser and type-two firefighter, said the fire burned especially hot in places that had not been treated or actively managed.
“It burned, and it burned hot because we weren’t able to get in there and treat it and manage it,” Smith said.
And from the Carbon Herald:
The experience has prompted tribal leaders to reconsider how carbon markets intersect with forest management and wildfire risk.
Officials say future projects may involve rotating forest areas and incorporating more active management practices to improve resilience while continuing to pursue long-term carbon sequestration opportunities.
You mean, actual management of forests helps guard against catastrophic wildfire? Who would have thunk it? And, AND, catastrophic wildfire is bad for carbon sequestration? Oh my word, my life now has deeper meaning……
On a serious note: the Warm Springs Tribe used to have forests that rival anything on public lands. I haven’t been on their Res in a while but do know they’ve had their share of large fires in the recent past. It’s good they have learned a valuable lesson from the snake oil salesmen selling carbon credits! These carbon schemes seem to work well in the South, where uncharacteristic wildfires seldom occur, and if they do they are held to smaller sizes.
I think you are doing the researchers responsible for this article a disservice by insinuating that they are just ‘discovering’ these problems that you apparently have always known about. Several of these authors have been raising alarms about problems with relying on forest based carbon offsets in fire adapted ecosystems as a climate change mitigation tool for a long time. This is in fact another data point that shows the climate science fundamental that the carbon cycle in the land sector will never compensate for the emissions from extracting, processing and burning fossil fuels, and that the idea of forest based offsets is predicated on erroneous assumptions and flawed science. As far as the ‘snake oil salesmen’ (thanks Jim Z!) selling (and buying and trading) carbon credits goes, lets name them: Green Diamond Resource Company, Sierra Pacific Industries, New Forests, Weyerhauser, Humboldt Redwood Company, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, Microsoft, and all of their fossil fuel buddies like Chevron, Phillips 66, Total, Eni, BP, etc etc etc. No need to pull any punches, if folks want to get snarky about carbon trading be sure to point your darts at the responsible parties.
Naw, my point was aimed at smaller, non-industrial private landowners, who are barded with promises of glory and wealth by signing into carbon credits. I think what you mentioned was offset industries/groups who benefit by waving credits like a winning bingo card!
To come out with such results, at this day and time is comical at the very least! Why not concentrate on other “less common sense” discoveries….🤣🤣🤣. It’s really laughable, Gary!
Gary, but the people who developed these markets are governments and those who benefit from counting and calculating things, not the “offending” industries.
Like Jim, I can’t blame landowners who want to make money. But let’s face it, when you are paid on “changes from what you otherwise would have done, there is a major opportunity for grifting, and it seems like governments are paying people to check on potential grift, when they could be spending money on developing and implementing lower carbon solutions.Which I think it where we agree. My point is that we all knew this from the beginning.
Very interesting point Jim, thanks. I definitely try to point my darts at the big fish and not the small landowners, who are being preyed upon to some degree. But as responsible as they are, “governments” are also just getting played. To think that “governments” are responsible for the establishment of markets-based environmental management mechanisms is to ignore the factual basis of how they are/were developed under the multi-million dollar lobby of extractive industry and the financial sector, not to forget a well funded corporate green sector. It is also ignores the reality of the revolving door between government and the private sector. Great discussion though, very timely.
I organized a 50-year reunion, of sorts, with my class of 1976’ets in forestry at our Alma Mayer this past March. I called it “the stone tablet rendezvous” of old fogies! 🤣. We invited most of the groups from about 1972 thru 1980, since some of our group have gone on, to hopefully Heaven, but also knowing several went to Hell in a hand basket.
One of the highlights was a new 20 million dollar research lab, for tree genetics (Sharon) and seedling diseases, along with whatever else that part of the country is interested in. I can tell you, forest industry is big in southeast Arkansas! Nowhere near where national forests are located, but they have rolled their own down there for decades.
Back on the day, we had a temporary classmate by the name of Webb, so we called him “Spider Webb”. Anyway, we were in Inorganic Chemistry one day, being able to ask the professor any question we wanted. Well, old Spider, who a bit strange anyway, ask the professor why chemistry labs were pressurized. The professor said why would they be, if they were, any chemical would be allowed to escape into the environment. Well, old Spider said all the movies showed them as being pressurized……. This new lab really is pressurized, to keep outside particles, or disease vectors from contaminating the research subjects; the labs have clean rooms and a positive atmosphere control!
On of my classmates is pretty big into carbon credits, and has been for probably a decade. He and I chat about the opportunities for private landowners to “lease” their land for carbon, earning a small rental return in legal tender, but for a very long time. I’m still not convinced these smoke and mirrors to burn carbon are on the up and up. Fires in the West would certainly make want a bail out clause, if a fire torched my income stream. I’ve heard many horror stories, similar to the solar panel schemes. These solar scammers make a life insurance salesman look good!
Anyway Gary, my experience with carbon credits has stayed on the periphery of the bigger picture, and trying to make sure small-scale owners of fine timberlands do not end up in a heap!
Isn’t this mostly a matter of risk management, and leaing with uncertainty. The insuracne industry has a bit of experience with this.
Fuel treatments and wildfire suppression are unwarranted, because fuel treatments release more carbon than they save (except in rare instances that the agencies are not interested in hewing to), and fire suppression is both ecologically contraindicated, and it exacerbates the carbon booms and busts.
Carbon and carbon offsets are just a piece of the sum totals of benefits from fuels treatments. Are you saying fire suppression is a losing proposition? Well, that’s ignorant; I’ve got a million of acres of fires that would argue if suppression had been successful, whole ecosystems would still be intact!
Carbon is only a small, really unimportant reason for forest management, and really never enters the discussion of wildfire decision protocols…
Good grief!